Blizzard is interested in adding a little more complexity to the three core roles in Overwatch 2 (tank, damage, and support); Blizzard has always preferred simplicity in competitive shooters (three or four abilities instead of ten is that's why), and as part of that, they don't include a lot of invisible passive abilities. That may change if the recent experiment called "role-passive" works out.

Role passives are essentially small-scale benefits based on which role a hero is in. Here are some examples Blizzard shared in today's behind-the-scenes video:

Interesting. Speed boost for damage and auto-heal for support (at a lower rate than Mercy's current passive) could be a pretty big change for the meta, depending on its strength. And since the proposed passives would apply equally to all heroes in their respective roles, there would be no need to learn a lot to keep track of what everyone can do.

As with anything the "Overwatch" team talks about up front, it is quite possible that none of this will make it into the final version of "Overwatch 2". Or, even if role passives are included, don't expect them to be the specific abilities itemized.

BlizzCon 2021 starts today and runs through the weekend. To stay up-to-date on all the happenings, read everything we've found out about BlizzCon 2021 so far.