Summary
Overwatch 2has officially launched Season 12, New Frontiers, meaning the full patch notes for the update are now available. With a new Martian hero, game mode, competitive reset, and more, thisOverwatch 2season has a lot for fans to check out.
On August 20,Overwatch 2began its 12th season since the sequel’s launch. This brought a new refresh of the Battle Pass to the game, as well as Juno, a highly-mobile support hero, and thefirst natural-born Martian in the world ofOverwatch 2.
To ensure fans are aware of everything new in the update,Overwatch 2has revealed the full patch notes for Season 12. Besides the new hero, one of the other important additions in Season 12 is Clash, a new core game mode in which players must capture objectives as they push deeper into enemy territory. The game mode has two maps to start: Hanaoka and the Throne of Anubis,both inspired by classicOverwatchmaps.
Of course, a majorOverwatch 2patch also means new balance updates for its various characters. Several high-mobility heroes had their health decreased from 250 to 225 to put them more at risk for burst damage. While some, like Mercy, Moira, and Lucio, received buffs elsewhere to compensate, others like Hanzo and Echo got no such relief. Orisa, Zarya, Sojourn, Sombra, Torbjorn, andLifeweaver also received some buffs inOverwatch 2Season 12, but D.Va, Junkrat, and Illari were nerfed. Juno herself received some fine-tuning since her early playtest period, and the damage calculation for Kiriko’s Kunai has been evened out to be more consistent.
There were a handful of system updates as well. The Avoid feature has been updated with more slots and streamlined features to help fans better manage and curate their experience, and the new Wave Respawn system – an improved version of the Group Respawns added to the game in Season 7 – has been added to all forms ofOverwatch 2. Additionally,Overwatch 2has finally implemented the Flashpoint spawn speed boostfirst tested in Quicker Play earlier this year.
For Competitive Play, fans will find their ranks have been reset – somethingOverwatchnow intends to do every six months alongside major updates, like new game modes or fundamental system changes. Players will need to complete 10 placement matches per role to start climbing the ladder again – and the improvements to the Predicted Rank system should let fans find their next Competitive game much faster than before.
Overwatch 2 Season 12 Patch Notes – Jul 26, 2025
Prepare for an interstellar journey to discover new frontiers as this season introduces Juno, a cheerful and extraordinary new Support hero hailing from Mars. Then battle through two new maps in the Clash game mode where you’ll engage in an intense tug of war for the win! Unleash ancient Egyptian divinity with the new Mythic Anubis Reaper Hero Skin and smite your foes using the heavenly sword of the sun God Ra with the upcoming Mythic Midnight Sun Ana Weapon Skin. Upgrade to the premium battle pass and add Legendary Bast Doomfist, Oni Ana, and more to your collection.
New Hero – Juno
Overwatch 2’s newest Support hero has touched down from Mars! Juno has landed with her versatile Mediblaster and Pulsar Torpedoes providing simultaneous healing and damage. Plus, Juno’s Hyper Ring propels the team into action, boosting movement for faster fights, and her high mobility allows her to swiftly maneuver the battlefield to provide critical support or evade threats effectively.
Juno Teo Minh was born on Mars during Project Red Promise – Lucheng Interstellar’s secret multi-stage initiative to terraform the planet. When dust storms began to ravage the planet, the Red Promise Colony lost contact with Lucheng, throwing the project’s future into jeopardy. To protect Juno, the Red Promise Team sent her to planet Earth, where she could live her life in safety. Now, Juno is determined to find a way to save her home and family – before time runs out.
New Core Game Mode - Clash
Get ready to experience Clash, a new core game mode inOverwatch 2! Clash features 5 capture objectives placed in a linear path on a mirrored map. Only one objective is active at a time, and the match starts with Objective C, the center one. Capture an objective by standing on it uncontested until the capture progress is complete. Teams that capture an objective are awarded 1 point to their score.
Since the trial for Clash that took place earlier this year, the final capture points for each team (A and E) are even more rewarding, worth three points that are split up into segments on the capture progress . A win comes when a team reaches five total points from capturing various objectives on the map, or if they manage to push into their opponent’s territory and fully capture the final objective.
Clash arrives in both Quick Play and Competitive Play with the new Hanaoka and Throne of Anubis maps and a temporary boost in frequency to ensure you get more chances to play. You can also play Clash in the Arcade for a limited time as well.
New Clash Map - Throne Of Anubis
Deep within these once-proud temple grounds lies the Throne of Anubis, the god program quarantined by Helix International. The quiet streets and historical sites surrounding the Throne carry an air of tension, for fear that the power that began the Omnic Crisis may yet again awaken.
Hero Mastery Updates
Charge up your particle cannon and load up your rockets! Hero Mastery single-player courses for both Pharah and Zarya launch this season. Time your shots and protect ally bots as you take part in new challenges in a limited-time event from August 20 to September 3. Plus earn new rewards and up to 22,500 Battle Pass XP.
General Updates
Avoid As Teammate
The Avoid List has been updated with the following new features:
Developer Comments: Avoiding other players has been a great way to curate your experience since the system was added, but with these changes we wanted to explore giving players best ways to manage their avoid slots.
Spawn System Changes
Developer Comments: These changes are designed to reduce the number of one-sided matches. For an in-depth analysis of our thought process behind the changes to respawning, read the latest Director’s Take on PlayOverwatch.com.
Competitive Play Updates
Mid-Year Rank Reset
Developer Comments: Our plan is to reset ranks every 6 months alongside larger updates that shake up the metagame including significant hero balance changes, new heroes like Juno, new game modes like Clash, and changes to core systems like the respawning changes mentioned above.
Predicted Rank
Hero Updates
Developer Comments: Our recent 2.11.1 patch (which adjusted all the Tank heroes), saw a significant gain in interest for the role and had a positive lasting effect in queue times for Damage and Support as well. There are a few additional tuning changes in this update for Tanks but this patch is largely focused on adjusting many of the more mobile heroes in the Damage and Support roles. Mobility is very powerful and we would like for there to be more of a tradeoff for the flexibility that it brings, especially as we add speed boosting abilities by welcoming Juno to the game. We’re moving a handful of heroes to a 225 HP maximum and in some cases increasing potency elsewhere in their kit.
TANK
D.Va
Developer Comment: The increase in Defense Matrix availability didn’t help D.Va’s overall performance that much compared to the amount of frustration it is causing players on the opposing team, so we’re reverting it to the previous duration.
Orisa
Developer Comment: Orisa is still underperforming so we’re increasing the impact damage of Energy Javelin to better reward accuracy with the ability.
Zarya
Developer Comment: Zarya’s secondary fire didn’t benefit much from the projectile size changes in Season 9 since it’s mostly aimed at the ground. We’re increasing its damage to keep it feeling effective relative to her primary fire beam.
DAMAGE
Echo
Developer Comment: No additional adjustments to support the reduced health pool as, like Pharah, Echo was one of the top performing Damage heroes recently.
Hanzo
Developer Comment: Hanzo doesn’t quite fit the category of being as highly mobile as the other heroes we’re moving to 225 HP, but like Widowmaker, has the potential long-range lethality merits, as he is now able to one-shot the 225 HP heroes. It’s also nice for the Hanzo mirror match to be more decisive as well.
Junkrat
Developer Comment: This is mostly a reversion back to how Junkrat’s grenades used to ricochet in early Overwatch, which enables more control over the angle of the bounce and helps the weapon better control spaces with some tricky shots, but the projectile size is now reduced after a couple of bounces so there will be fewer random feeling direct impacts near the end of the projectiles lifetime.
Sojourn
Developer Comment: After reducing the maximum damage of the Railgun’s secondary fire, we’re continuing to look at the effectiveness of Sojourn’s primary fire. These changes are to make it more accurate and better reward accuracy by increasing the energy gained from headshots.
Sombra
Developer Comment: The increased movement speed while in stealth will better enable Sombra to get into advantageous positions or be slightly more evasive with the new lower health.
Torbjörn
Developer Comment: This shift in armor health for Torbjorn is to increase survivability against the heroes which are most affected by armor’s damage reduction, such as Tracer.
SUPPORT
Illari
Developer Comment: Illari can deal a lot of damage over the course of a game but may have too much ammo, given that her projectiles are easier to land hits due to their increased projectile size. We’re also removing the extra environment collision size on her Captive Sun projectile so that it doesn’t accidentally detonate early when firing at nearby walls and such. There is a similar fix to prevent her secondary fire beam from impacting a wall instead of allies near it.
Juno
Developer Comment: Community feedback on Juno’s trial was split between over and underpowered. On the stat side, she performed strongly in most every categories but particularly overperformed in healing output over the course of a game. These changes are improving her utility while pulling back lightly on healing throughput, since we’d still like her to launch in a strong state as players grow accustomed to her playstyle. There were also quite a few quality-of-life improvements that are listed elsewhere in the patch notes.
Kiriko
Developer Comment: Despite the perception of how powerful Kiriko feels to play against, she is a hero that consistently underperforms when it comes to winning games. However, she is a highly evasive hero that makes a lot of sense to be in the 225 health bracket. To help counterbalance the loss of health, we’re smoothing out her damage dealing consistency by increasing the Kunai weapon’s base damage and removing the enhanced critical multiplier.
Lifeweaver
Developer Comment: The Petal Platform was too easy to waste if a player accidentally ran over it without intending to make use of it. Now it resets back to the ground if no one is standing on it. We’re also reducing its health so that it’s more reasonable counterplay to destroy the platform. Healing Blossom will now passively charge at a slower rate to enable players to swap between weapons without the fear of falling too far behind when swapping back to healing.
Mercy
Developer Comment: Mercy’s Guardian Angel movement enables her to be highly evasive and difficult to engage with for many heroes, but is also one of the most fun parts of her ability kit so we’d like to keep that strength, so we’re moving her to 225 HP and increasing the output of her Caduceus Staff beams.
Moira
Developer Comment: Moira can be difficult to take down between the low cooldown on her Fade ability and self-healing with the Biotic Orb, so now she has 225 HP and slightly higher damage output to keep an edge to her offensive potential.
Lúcio
Developer Comment: Lucio is one of the most mobile heroes and makes his allies faster as well, so we’re moving him into the 225 HP hero category. His playstyle tends to get into closer ranges more often than other heroes in this category, so we’re turning up his Primary fire damage output to increase his effectiveness at range before diving in.
Hero Quality of Life Updates
Developer Comments: Alongside balance changes that should make Juno a strong and viable choice in the Support Role, we also heard community feedback to apply several small changes to make the experience of playing with or against Juno a lot more enjoyable. Thank you for your detailed feedback during Juno’s Hero Trial.
General map & Mode updates
Overwatch 2
WHERE TO PLAY
Overwatch 2 is an always-on and ever-evolving free-to-play, team-based action game set in an optimistic future, where every match is the ultimate 5v5 battlefield brawl. Power up your railgun and disrupt the battlefield as Sojourn, or yield your axe and command attention as Junker Queen. Battle to take control of a robot and move it toward the enemy base in the new Push Mode. Bring the fight to new destinations across the globe in iconic locations like New York, Rome, Monte Carlo and Rio. Daily challenges and frequent updates mean there is always something new to play.
