Overwatch 2 season 7 patch notes: Sombra’s rework, new map, balance changes, and more

Overwatch 2 season seven is coming soon, and Blizzard has finally published patch notes for the new season. They spent a full week teasing much of what we should expect, but now we know what’s actually coming and what was left for future updates.

Along with confirming a crossover coming to the game, Blizzard had already indicated that the season will include a new map, and in a blog post, the game’s hero designer, Alec Dawson, detailed many of the hero balance changes that are on the horizon. Many of them are now confirmed.

Here is everything we know about Overwatch 2 season seven and the upcoming patch set to release on Oct. 10.

Overwatch 2 season 7 patch notes

Sombra rework

Here’s a summary of all key changes coming to Sombra with her rework in Overwatch season seven:

• Sombra’s Primary Fire, Machine Pistol, is significantly stronger, with 6% higher damage, lower bullet spread, longer time to reach max spread, and faster reload speed.
• Sombra’s Hack, her signature ability, is faster to cast but cancels her Stealth when used, has a longer natural cooldown and an even longer cooldown if an enemy hero interrupts its cast.
• Sombra’s passive Opportunist, which let her see enemies with low health behind walls, is now gone.
• Her Stealth, which let her become invisible, is now a passive that triggers automatically 3.5 seconds after Sombra isn’t performing any action other than moving and is not receiving damage.
• Sombra gained a new ability called Virus, which fires a projectile that deals damage over time and is faster on hacked enemies. Deals 100 damage to both, but over two seconds instead of four on Hacked targets.
• Sombra’s mobility with Translocator is now significantly nerfed. She can no longer activate it manually, and it will teleport her “after 0.25 seconds of being thrown or when impacting the environment”. However, its travel speed is almost three times faster, and its cooldown is one second lower.
• Blizzard spared Sombra’s ultimate, EMP, from major changes but nerfed it anyway, making its cost higher and its health percent damage lower.

Overwatch 2 season 7 hero changes

Blizzard also tuned other Overwatch heroes in the Oct. 10 patch, but they left the highly anticipated Roadhog rework out of this update. The only changes the beefy tank got are minor quality-of-life improvements in his ultimate usage.

The list below shows all Overwatch heroes that received changes in this update:

• Orisa: Nerfed. Fortify damage reduction decreased by 5%.
• Ramattra: Buffed. Nemesis Form cooldown reduced by one second.
• Wrecking Ball: Buffed. Bullets to reach the max spread on its primary fire, Quad Cannons, increased by 10 shots.
• Zarya: Nerfed. Lower Projected Barrier size and health, now matching Particle Barrier’s stats.
• Cassidy: Buffed. Now takes 75 percent less damage while in Combat Roll.
• Mei: Buffed. Primary fire damage significantly increase to 100 damage per second, and it now instantly slows enemies instead of building up over time.
• Torbjörn: Nerfed. Small change to Rivet Gun recovery and reduced health bonus from Overload.
• Brigitte: Buffed. Whiped Shot now deals more damage.
• Illari: Nerfed. Solar Rifle’s secondary fire now has lower healing per second.

Overwatch 2 season 7 new map: Samoa

Blizzard is introducing a new control map in season seven that takes place on the oceanic island of Samoa. In teasing and previewing the map, Blizzard also repeatedly referenced the popular character in Overwatch lore named Mauga, a Talon Heavy Assault that was introduced in a short story about Baptiste around four years ago.

Ahead of the Overwatch League Grand Finals, Blizzard showcased the new map with an exhibition match on the new upcoming map that will have three points. There is no new hero coming to Overwatch 2 in season seven. However, Blizzard did everything it could to leave breadcrumbs for an upcoming hero by including teasers for the new hero in the new map.

One room on Samoa includes a small home gym setup and a button-down shirt hanging up that is identical to the one Mauga is seen wearing in his short story appearance.

Overwatch 2 season 7 crossover event: Diablo

Blizzard confirmed that Overwatch 2 will have a new crossover event in season seven with Diablo-themed content coming to the game for Halloween Terror 2023.

Players will fight Butcher Roadhog, Azmodan Wrecking Ball, and Lilith Moira in the new mode, though Blizzard has yet to detail how the mode will work. Although we have no information in the patch notes about these enemies becoming skins for the Overwatch 2 characters, it’s very likely they will.

Before this confirmation, Blizzard published a teaser video that started out with Blizzard World being transformed into a haunted house that players might expect to see during the game’s yearly Halloween Terror event, but at the end, the developers flashed a few shots of what seems to clearly be a Legendary skin for Moira that depicts the Talon officer as the villainous demon Lilith from Diablo.