Overwatch 2 Defeat the Demon Lord: What is it and how to play

Overwatch 2 season five, which began on June 13, is off to a smashing start with a new game mode that pits four adventurers against an overpowered version of Reinhardt who is role-playing as the “Demon Lord.”

The limited-time mode “Defeat the Demon Lord” is in the arcade to celebrate the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired adventures of Tracer and her friends. And just like any role-playing campaign, the creator-made game has some unexplained twists and turns to it.

The general premise of the game is relatively straightforward. Players can queue up by going to the arcade where they can decide if they want to play as the Demon Lord, Heroes, or flex, meaning they’re willing to play whatever is needed first as matchmaking takes its course.

What is Defeat the Demon Lord?

Defeat the Demon Lord is a limited-time four-vs-one game mode that pits four players against one Demon Lord that is played by Reinhardt. The game has a limited hero pool for those on the “heroes” side, and some of their abilities are adjusted to account for the fearsomely overpowered Reinhardt that the team is going up against.

For the heroes to win, they must eliminate the Demon Lord three times. And for the Demon Lord to win, he must rack up 30 kills of his own. While it seems like the odds are stacked in the favor of the heroes, Demon Lord Reinhardt is anything but your typical Reinhardt. And if you’re on the side of the heroes, you’ll be in a lot of trouble if you go in thinking you can easily take out the Demon Lord.

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With a massive health pool of 6,000 HP, Demon Lord Reinhardt can pick up buffs throughout the map that respawn, including speed boosts and free ultimate charge. Meanwhile, his damage is amplified, his Earthshatter Ultimate is significantly strong, and the more you play, the more you realize that the Demon Lord is not to be taken lightly.

How to play Defeat the Demon Lord

Players can find the limited-time game mode in the arcade, and if you’re trying to win a game as the Demon Lord, you’ll be best off if you take as much advantage as possible of every buff and health pack you can find.

The Demon Lord has no healing, and while he has 6,000 health, that can get chunked through quickly if you’re not careful. Getting a speed boost will help you close the gap against opponents to minimize incoming damage and secure kills.

On the hero side of the game mode, playing it safe and paying attention to places where Reinhardt can buff and heal are critical. Reinhardt can make short work of nearly all the playable heroes in the game except for the two available tanks, Orisa and Junker Queen.

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To win as the heroes, you will likely want to have an Orisa on your team that can mitigate some damage and block the Reinhardt from getting to the buffs he’s looking for easily.

Meanwhile, a couple of heroes have some balance changes in this mode to account for how terrifying the Demon Lord is. I’m not sure that I’ve uncovered all of the hero buffs just yet, but the biggest that I’ve noted so far are with Genji and Junker Queen. 

With the Demon Lord’s speed boost being one of his biggest benefits, Junker Queen’s Carnage ability has an added slow to Reinhardt that is made visible with an effect over his character. Additionally, Genji’s health pool during his Dragon Blade Ultimate is increased to 600 for fairly obvious reasons. Given how Genji needs to be on top of the Demon Lord to deal damage during his ult, it would be a little bit unfair if the Demon Lord could take him out with one or two melee swings while Genji is mid-Blade.

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This game can take place on three different maps—Eichenwalde, Adlersbrunn, and Black Forest—and high ground on these maps is essential. Eichenwalde is probably the easiest map for the heroes to win on because of how easy it is to exploit high ground and use a Lucio and/or Orisa to just continually knock the Demon Lord off of the high ground.

In watching some streamers play the game extensively, it appears as though a well-coordinated group of heroes will win most of the time. But if a Reinhardt player can optimize his pathing to get as many boosts as possible and leverage as many health packs as possible, it is certainly possible, but not easy, for the Demon Lord to claim victory.