Blizzard Keeps Its Fans in the Loop With Overwatch 2 Stadium Summer Roadmap
Blizzard Entertainment has unveiled its Overwatch 2 Stadium roadmap for 2025, teasing some of the heroes and features it plans to add in Season 17, Season 18, Season 19, and beyond.
The team behind the pioneering hero shooter dived into the details of its new mode’s past, present, and future with a Director’s Take blog post from game director Aaron Keller. It comes with a surprise summer roadmap now that the mode has been available for a little longer than a week, while also clarifying how the mode got its start and how it’s performed so far.
Stadium Gets 7 New Heroes This Summer
The Stadium rollout will press forward when new Damage hero Freja joins its limited roster with a mid-season patch for Season 16, but it’s Season 17 in June that will really kick things up a notch. Junkrat, Sigma, and Zenyatta will be added to the strategic multiplayer mode’s list of playable heroes at this time, bringing along the Esperança Push map and Samoa Control map with them.
Blizzard will also use this time to further flesh out how Stadium works by adding in things like Unranked Crossplay, new all-star rewards, custom games, additional example builds, and an option to save and share builds. It’s unclear if all heroes and features will arrive at the start of Season 17 or if they will be released throughout the season.
Season 18 sends in Overwatch’s gorilla icon, Winston, as a playable character, with Sojourn and Brigitte set to join, too. Route 66 and London maps will also join the pool at this time, as will a Payload Race game mode, which comes with two new maps, a Stadium trials feature, and, finally, the freedom to Endorse your teammates.
Blizzard’s transparency regarding Stadium’s development comes with the assurance that “multiple new heroes,” both from Overwatch 2’s existing roster and characters that have yet to be revealed, will be added to the mode every season. For Season 19 and beyond, a new China map is on the way, with a Draft Mode feature, consumables, item system tweaks, and more also in the works.
How has Stadium Performed so Far?
The Overwatch 2 team also shared Stadium stats that reveal how players have decided to spend their time with Blizzard’s new mode. It’s currently “eclipsing” Quick Play and Competitive, making it Overwatch 2’s most played mode with 2.3 million matches played across 7.8 million hours during launch week alone.
It secures the lengthy game mode’s stats at more than double what was seen with Overwatch Classic’s launch week. Other interesting stats crown Lucio as both the hero with the highest win rate and the lowest pick rate, while players have managed to spend 900 billion Stadium Cash when choosing 206 million items for their builds.
Keller’s Director’s Take touches on a few important details related to the development of Stadium, too. One important note saw the game director confirming the mode has been in development before Overwatch 2 launched. Though the team has touched on this timeline in the past, his comment should help squash prevailing fan theories that Stadium was born out of Blizzard’s desire to compete with Marvel Rivals, which launched December 2024.
Keller says Blizzard will keep up the communication going forward, promising to release more insight into Stadium next week with an additional Director’s take. Meanwhile, he also confirms that, while Stadium has entered the discussion as a massively popular addition to Overwatch 2, Blizzard remains committed to maintaining other core experiences such as standard Quick Play and Competitive options.
“Before signing off, I’d like to reiterate the team’s commitment to the Core modes of Overwatch,” Keller clarified. “We’re still pouring as much time, energy and passion into these as we always have. Stadium isn’t competing for those resources: it’s giving us more opportunities to deliver Overwatch in a new, exciting way.
“We can’t wait for you to see what’s coming there, especially Season 18. It’s going to be a banger! Have fun with Stadium and, as always, let’s make a great game.”
Overwatch 2 brought Stadium to players when Season 16 launched last week. It’s part of Blizzard’s ongoing initiative to reinvigorate its player base, which began with an all-encompassing Spotlight presentation in February. It’s led to the return of loot boxes and an improved Steam rating as players celebrate what some feel is the best Overwatch experience fans have seen in years.
While we wait for more udpates, you can check out our guide to learn more about how Stadium works. You can also see our recommendations for the best Tank Builds, DPS Builds, and Support Builds.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He’s best known for his work at sites like The Pitch, The Escapist, and OnlySP. Be sure to give him a follow on Bluesky (@mikecripe.bsky.social) and Twitter (@MikeCripe).
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