A small, but unexpected change has recently occurred in the Overwatch PTR. The Rate This Match feature, which has been a staple of Overwatch since it launched a year ago, has been removed from the game as a part of the most recent PTR patch 1.12. While not everything that comes through the PTR becomes permanent, much of it does, which means the feature's removal will likely go live soon.

Players who noticed the change flocked to the game's forums to get answers, where Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan happily obliged them.

"We had high hopes for this feature," Kaplan said of the removal. However, he goes on to say that after a year, the team learned just three things from it. The first was that new players tend to use the Rate This Match feature more than already existing players. The rest they learned was fairly obvious: that players enjoy winning and dislike losing.

Ultimately, the decision came down to what Kaplan and the team felt provided the most polished experience for Overwatch players. "We want to reduce as much clutter in the UI as possible and seeing as we were not getting tremendous results from the feature, we decided to remove it," Kaplan wrote.

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The 1.12 patch had already garnered some attention due to the major changes it implemented on three high-profile characters in the game. Roadhog got a large nerf to his damage output, while McCree and Reaper saw significant buffs to their abilities.

One of the most anticipated additions to the game that is also currently going through its paces on the PTR is the new Horizon Lunar Colony Map. This all-new- assault map takes place on the Moon, and comes complete with a new low-gravity feature that is a godsend for snipers.

Currently, rumors are swirling about the next bit of content headed to Overwatch. As always, the most popular theories center around the identity of the next playable hero. The leading theory? Not who one would think.

The same 4chan user who correctly leaked the Lunar Colony Map is now claiming the next hero will be another cybernetically enhanced primate like Winston. It seems far-fetched, but Blizzard's own promotional material confirms Winston had an escape buddy on the colony named Hammond. Whether he becomes a playable character or not has yet to be seen.

Overwatch is available now for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

Source: Battle.net