Although it’s already a couple of years old, Blizzard’s hit multiplayer shooter can still use some upgrades from time to time. As promised, the next Overwatch update will revamp the communication wheel – which has been requested by fans for a long time.
Last week, Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan responded to a message on the Overwatch forums, suggesting that they are already working on making some appropriate changes to the communication wheel in the game. True enough, the developer delivered, and the update has finally arrived at least on the public test server.
What are the changes?
Each of the 32 heroes in Overwatch is getting a total of 26 voice lines each. These voice lines pertain to useful commands in the game. According to Kaplan on the developer update video, these lines include fall back, sorry, 3-2-1 countdown, and press the objective.
Once the Overwatch update has been installed, players can choose from these lines and customize their communications wheel to whatever they see fit. Now, players are no longer limited to “I need healing” and “group up with me” voice lines.
For now, the update is live on the Overwatch public test servers, so it isn’t live on the full game yet. Considering it’s already here, we can expect the update to go live sometime next week. We’re sure that players are more than eager to get their hands on the update as the communications wheel has long been a problem.
It was supposed to serve as a substitute for players without any mics or headsets, but with such limited options, it became hard for players to communicate properly through the wheel.
Other changes in the update
As per the patch notes, there are other updates being made to the game. Another important one is that players can now view the patch notes from within the game itself, meaning they no longer have to look elsewhere for the list of changes.
The update also includes changes to the newly released Echo. Once the update is live, players will have a harder time hitting Echo in the head. This goes the same for Reinhardt, whose head hit volume has been increased as well.
Another change worth noting is that players can now reset the basketball inside the dropship if they want to try shooting it in the ring again. Lastly, there are also some bug fixes and workshop tweaks in the update.
This Overwatch update may be small, but what it adds is something that players have been longing for. Blizzard might even improve the communication wheel over time.
Image used courtesy of Blizzard/YouTube