Blizzard Entertainment's team-based shooter Overwatch is four years old, and has been celebrating with an event providing special skins to various characters that is set to end tomorrow. The game's sequel is in production, but even as major updates wind down with the addition of Overwatch's last new character, Echo, adjustments are still being made to its competitive scene.

Today community manager Molly Fender announced that Hero Pools are "removed indefinitely" from Overwatch competitive play on the Blizzard Forums, and at this point, there are no plans to re-implemented them. These pools have effectively been bans of characters meant to "address issues with stagnating metas" according to Fender, but thanks to balance updates and the introduction of Experimental Cards, the team feels there is no longer a need to disable certain heroes.

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The prevalence of Hero Pools has been waning, as Blizzard decided to remove them for Competitive tiers below Master and Grandmaster in May. Players who enjoy using characters that may have otherwise been limited due to a perceived meta prevalence should be excited to jump into the game playing whoever they want now that Overwatch has all the major content it is going to receive before Overwatch 2 is released.

While competitive play is officially free from Hero Pools, the esport Overwatch League (OWL) still has one in limited circumstances. Starting June 13 the OWL will "utilize a single Hero Pool for the first two weeks of each tournament cycle" according to Fender's post, including qualifier matches and "a tournament weekend featuring bracket play." However, they will not appear the week before tournaments or during tournament bracket play.

As these changes are being made to Overwatch's competitive side, the game is also seeing a resurgence thanks to a broader support for modding communities. The Overwatch Workshop has seen all manner of mods in recent weeks, from huge game changers like a WarioWare-style mini-game collection to more silly character-based adjustments like giving Widowmaker creepy spider legs she can use to climb up walls.

At the same time, Blizzard has been branching out its popular shooter with more pieces of media in the lead-up to Overwatch 2. An official Overwatch novel became available on June 2, for example, which may help long-time fans stay invested in the title as they jump into competitive matches with no hero restrictions.

Overwatch is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

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Source: Blizzard Forums