Marvel Rivals 'definitely had an impact' on Overwatch, says game director

At GDC, Overwatch game director Aaron Keller addressed questions about how Blizzard responded when Marvel Rivals arrived and drew away part of Overwatch's audience. He acknowledged that Rivals "definitely had an impact on us in a lot of different ways."

Keller pointed to the visible excitement among new Rivals players for that game's big hero drop as a key lesson. "One of the biggest ones was seeing the amount of excitement that new players to Rivals had for this big drop of heroes," he said, and added that it prompted internal conversations about how players might react to adding many heroes at once.

"It got us talking. Hey, what if we could just drop 30 new heroes into Overwatch? What would player reaction to that be?" Keller said, noting the release felt similar to such a large influx and that the experience helped clarify the kinds of releases Blizzard wants to make going forward.

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