- Image of Overwatch 2 courtesy of Blizzard

Overwatch 2 Developers Make Bold Changes to the Upcoming Roadmap

Originally posted on Total Apex Gaming | By Devin Morris | Last updated Jun 19, 2025 9:35 AM ET

In a weekly recall blog, Overwatch 2 Stadium developers released updates to the upcoming seasonal roadmap. The changes involve the inclusion of heroes into Stadium, as well as a shake-up of when certain additions are introduced to the game mode. Either through feedback or wanting more time to work on heroes or aspects, changes have been made to the original Overwatch 2 roadmap.

Overwatch 2 Heroes Introduction

Image of Overwatch 2025 Roadmap courtesy of Blizzard

Originally, Sojourn was set to join Winston and Brigitte in Stadium for Season 18, but this plan has changed. The development team wants more time to work with Sojourn to get her ready for Stadium. Instead, Pharah is joining the lineup to bring a difference in gameplay. Sojourn will join the team in Season 19. Wuyang, the next Overwatch 2 hero, was joining Stadium in the Season 18 Midseason patch, but the British Speedster, Tracer, replaces them. Wuyang’s Stadium release is not confirmed, but it will be at a later date.

Feature Shifts

Along with Hero changes, the Stadium team is shifting the release of various features to Stadium. Below is the list of changes to the original roadmap:

Unranked, Backfill, and Crossplay shifted to Season 18 instead of 17
Stadium Trials shifted to Season 19 instead of 18
Competitive Drafts (change hero picking) shifted to Season 18 instead of 19

Season 17 Additions

As we have discussed in prior articles, Stadium is getting the Stadium Forge and Custom Game Features. Players will have the opportunity to create, share, use, and edit builds with the Stadium Forge feature. Custom games allow players to play with and against their friends in one lobby. In Season 18, custom games will get the ability to add bots to their games for additional practice methods. Other changes coming to Stadium in Season 17 are: