The Overwatch 2 October 2023 update brings the Sombra rework, the new map Samoa, Group Respawns, and a crossover game mode with Diablo for this year's Halloween event. Check out the Sombra rework and the Overwatch 2 October 2023 update patch notes here.

Sombra Rework

In the full patch notes, the Overwatch 2 dev team had the following words to say about the Sombra rework.

“We approached the Sombra Rework by identifying key goals to guide decisions throughout the design iteration process: make Sombra more committal when engaging, increase the active feel in her ability kit, and uphold the current Hacker fantasy. With these goals, there were multiple angles to tackle around her existing kit. Naturally, many ideas were also meant to address frustrations playing against the character, ensuring there is proper counterplay for enemies.”

Machine Pistol

  • Damage increased from 7.5 to 8.
  • Minimum Spread reduced from 0.5 to 0.
  • Number of shots until max spread has been increased from 3 to 6 shots.
  • Reload time reduced from 1.4 seconds to 1.2 seconds.

Hack

  • Cast time reduced from 0.75 seconds to 0.65 seconds.
  • Now cancels Stealth when hacking an enemy hero.
  • Cooldown increased from 4 to 6 seconds.
  • Hack has a reduced cooldown of 3 seconds if Hack is interrupted or if a non-hero enemy is hacked.
  • The “Hacked” warning text will now only appear while you are silenced and not for the remainder duration of the hack debuff.

Opportunist

  • Removed.

Stealth

  • Ability reworked to be a passive. Sombra automatically becomes invisible after 3.5 seconds while not shooting, using a damaging ability, or receiving damage.
  • Stealth movement speed bonus reduced from 60% to 45%.
  • Fade Out duration into Stealth reduced from 0.375 seconds to 0.25 seconds.
  • Fade In duration from Stealth reduced from 0.5 seconds to 0.375 seconds.
  • Updated the UI messaging to the Sombra player when hacking Health Packs to “Revealed” instead of “Detected”. Now the message “Detected” is only used when an enemy player is in the detection radius.

Translocator

  • Can no longer can be manually activated. Translocator will now automatically teleport Sombra after 0.25 seconds from being thrown or when impacting the environment.
  • Reduces the Stealth passive cooldown after teleporting.
  • Projectile speed increased from 25 to 72.
  • Cooldown reduced from 6 seconds to 5 seconds. Cooldown now begins after
  • Sombra teleports to the location of the Transponder.
  • Projectile launch initial vertical offset removed.

EMP

  • Ultimate charge cost increased by 15%.
  • Health percent damage decreased from 40% to 30%.

Virus

  • This is a new ability assigned to Ability 1 by default.
  • Fire a projectile that damages an enemy over time. Damage is dealt faster on Hacked enemies.
  • Impact Damage: 10 (20 on hacked target).
  • Damage over time: 100 over 4 seconds (100 over 2 seconds on hacked target).

New Map – Samoa

“Samoa is a new Control map where you’ll fight on a tropical beach, a gleaming city, and inside a volcano! Watch out for deadly pitfalls, or you might just be swimming in lava! Samoa will be available to play right away in a dedicated Arcade card and will appear in Quick Play and other unranked modes starting on October 10 with it appearing in Competitive Play later in the season.”

Halloween Terror 2023

The event for Overwatch 2 this October 2023 is the Halloween Terror, coming back with the Junkenstein's Revenge and Wrath of the Bride game modes. A new crossover game mode with Diablo IV, Trials of Sanctuary, will also be available.

In it, you get to battle powerful bosses including Butcher Roadhog, Azmodan Wrecking Ball, and Lilith Moira.

Overwatch 2 October 2023 Patch Notes

Group Respawn

  • Heroes who die within 5 seconds of each other will respawn together, resulting in some players having either a slightly longer or shorter queue than the standard 10 seconds.
  • Heroes who die more than 5 seconds from another player eliminated will still respawn in 10 seconds on their own.
  • These changes do not apply to Competitive Play mode.

Unranked Leaver Penalties

  • 75% XP penalty removed.
  • The penalty thresholds have not changed, but the mechanics have also never been completely explained. The last 20 games played a player participated in are recorded. Leaving four of these 20 games activates the first penalty threshold. Leaving six of these 20 games activates the second penalty threshold.
  • Queuing for most game modes is now suspended when a player leaves a match inside a penalty threshold.
  • Players that reach the first penalty threshold will be suspended for 10 minutes.
  • Players that reach the second penalty threshold will be suspended for 30 minutes.
  • The queue suspension will reapply each time a player leaves a game when they are above the first penalty threshold but not when they complete their games.
  • Consecutive Match XP bonus has been renamed to Endurance Bonus.
  • Endurance Bonus is XP granted when finishing matches without leaving the previous match.

Story Missions

  • You can now spectate any Story Mission that your friends are playing if you own the campaign pack for that mission.

Hero Mastery

Scoring Update

  • Bonus score granted from time remaining in the gold bonus tier is now accurate to one-hundredth of a second. (Previously completed games in the Top 500 leaderboards are not adjusted.)
  • The user interface has been updated to display this new time accuracy everywhere that we display time and score.

Replays

  • Hero Mastery now supports replays.
  • Replays are saved for any completed course that results in a new scoring record.
  • The user interface for Hero Mastery replays has been customized to display score, time, and other information.

Player Progression

  • Lowered show priority for Time Played and Wins sub-badges in the Showcase.
  • Added Virus Kills to Sombra's sub-badge set.

Challenges

  • Reduced the number of wins required to unlock Sojourn, Junker Queen and Kiriko through Hero challenges.
  • Illari is now unlockable through Hero challenges.

Overwatch 2 October 2023 – Tank Hero Updates

Orisa

  • Fortify
    • Damage reduction decreased from 50% to 45%.

Ramattra

  • Nemesis Form
    • Cooldown decreased from 8 to 7 seconds.

Wrecking Ball

  • Quad Cannons
    • Number of shots to reach max spread increased from 20 to 30.

Zarya

  • Projected Barrier
    • Size decreased 15% now matching back to the size of Particle Barrier.
    • Health decreased from 225 to 200 matching back to the health of Particle Barrier.

Overwatch 2 October 2023 – Damage Hero Updates

Cassidy

  • Combat Roll
    • Damage reduction increased from 50% to 75%.

Mei

  • Deep Chill
    • Removed.
  • Endothermic Blaster
    • Damage per second increased from 70 to 100.
    • Now immediately slows enemies by 40% instead of building up over time.

Torbjorn

  • Rivet Gun
    • Primary fire recovery increased from .48 to .51 seconds.
  • Overload
    • Overhealth bonus decreased from 100 to 75.

Overwatch 2 October 2023 – Support Hero Changes

Brigitte

  • Whip Shot
    • Damage increased from 70 to 80.

Illari

  • Solar Rifle
    • Secondary fire healing per second decreased from 120 to 105.

Route 66 Design Changes

“There are now additional places for the attacking team to take cover around their initial spawn. The doors on the first checkpoint will now only close one of the two doors after the payload passes by giving attackers more options to work through the difficult choke points. There will also be fewer places to take cover in the later parts of the map.”

Map Lighting For Season 7

Push

  • New Queen Street – Morning
  • Colosseo – Evening
  • Esperança – Morning

Hybrid

  • Blizzard World – Night
  • Eichenwalde – Morning
  • Hollywood – Morning
  • King’s Row – Night
  • Midtown – Night (New)
  • Numbani – Morning
  • Paraíso – Evening

Escort

  • Dorado – Evening
  • Havana – Morning
  • Watchpoint: Gibraltar – Morning
  • Junkertown – Morning
  • Circuit royal – Morning
  • Rialto – Evening
  • Route 66 – Overcast (New)
  • Shambali Monastery – Night

Control

  • Antarctic Peninsula – Night
  • Busan – Morning
  • Ilios – Evening
  • Lijiang Tower – Dawn
  • Nepal – Morning
  • Oasis – Morning
  • Samoa — Morning (New Map)

Flashpoint

  • New Junk City – Morning
  • Suravasa – Morning

Hero Option and Input Updates

“In addition to the hero balance adjustments in this update, we are implementing additional quality-of-life settings and additional input options for several hero abilities to give you the ability to custom-tailor your experience of playing your favorite heroes.”

You can view these in the full Overwatch 2 October 2023 Patch Notes.

Bug Fixes

General

  • Fixed a bug where some players were unable to capture Plays of the Game using the in-game capture system.
  • Fixed an issue with the ‘Random' option for Victory Poses and Highlight Intros not saving.
  • Fixed a bug that could result in Support Heroes losing the ability to see allied health bars in Control matches.
  • Fixed an issue with the camera breaking during Plays of the Game if the player used a Souvenir during the play.

Maps

  • Watchpoint: Gibraltar
    • Fixed an issue with the end-of-game line-up camera clipping into the environment.
  • Junkertown
    • Fixed an area of the map that allowed turrets to be placed inside the environment.
  • New Junk City
    • Fixed some areas of the map that caused players to get stuck.
    • Fixed lighting in some areas around the map.
    • Fixed areas of the map that had gaps in its collision.
  • Rialto
    • Fixed an area near the boat docks that could result in players becoming stuck.
  • Suravasa
    • Fixed lighting in several areas on the map.
    • Fixed some collision on the map that could cause some odd interactions with certain ultimate abilities.

Story Missions

  • Fixed a few areas on the map that could trap Tracer in the Toronto Mission.

Heroes

  • Cassidy
    • Fixed a bug that caused Magnetic Grenade to not detach from eliminated targets.
  • Illari
    • Fixed an issue that prevented the Perfect Placement achievement from completing in some cases.
    • Fixed an interaction with Healing Pylon and Lifeweaver's Tree of Life, the pylon should now pass through the tree's canopy.
    • Fixed an issue with Captive Sun that resulted in the normal primary fire being used if fired at the end of the ultimate duration.
    • Fixed a bug with Illari's secondary fire that could cause performance issues.
  • Kiriko
    • Fixed an interaction that prevented the ‘Debuffs Cleansed' emblem from counting Captive Sun effects cleansed with Kiriko's Protection Suzu.
    • Fixed an issue that allowed Kiriko to teleport outside of the playable space.
  • Lifeweaver
    • Fixed an issue where Lifeweaver would call out an enemy Petal Platform as his own when pinging.
  • Mei
    • Fixed a bug that prevented damage from Mei's alternate fire from being counted toward the progress of the ‘Weapon Damage' emblem.
  • Sigma
    • Fixed an issue with Kinetic Grasp that prevented the following abilities from being converted into overhealth: Ramattra's Ravenous Vortex, Mei's Blizzard, Sojourn's Disruptor Shot.
  • Symmetra
    • Fixed Symmetra's footsteps failing to play while crouched.