Ever since the switch from the first Overwatch to Overwatch 2, one of the biggest complaints players have had about the game is the map pools. Not every single map is available to players at any given time, something which Blizzard has justified by claiming map pools allowed veteran players to encounter the new maps added to Overwatch 2 more frequently. Despite this, they've remained a fairly unpopular feature up to this day.
Finally ready to listen to player complaints, Blizzard is now getting rid of map pools once Season 4 kicks off later this year. In a new blog post on the official Overwatch website, game director Aaron Keller has explained some of the changes coming to Overwatch 2 in the future regarding its maps, confirming that map pools aren't really working at the moment but may return once the game has a lot more maps than it does at the moment.
"We aimed to provide a bit of freshness each season and concentrate the number of maps that people were playing, however player sentiment around map pools was pretty low, the map roster doesn’t have enough maps where we truly need them, and the impact they had on seasonal identity was fairly low," explains Keller. "There’s the possibility that we bring map pools back in the far future when we have a lot more maps in the game. If we were to bring them back, they would probably rotate at a faster rate, potentially every week."
Keller has also addressed concerns about map frequency, as there have been some complaints about new maps appearing a lot more than others when they're introduced. Keller admits that the game's map choice system isn't entirely random, but the matchmaker is attempting to avoid maps people have played before over a short period of time. Keller doesn't have a solution right now, but promises that something will be done to address the problem in a later season.
All of this comes shortly after Blizzard announced a new map called Antarctic Peninsula and art director Dion Rogers' promise that future new game modes will release alongside several new maps instead of just one. Hopefully, these positive changes carry on throughout Season 3 and even further.