Fans of Blizzard's staple 5v5 online multiplayer are already celebrating the news of the upcoming Overwatch 2 season. Season 7 Rise of Darkness is due to begin on October 10, 2023, and with it comes a whole host of new content.
Overwatch 2 is often praised for its wealth of new content, and the game is well-loved for its dedication to fresh cosmetics as well as routinely updating heroes and maps to fall in line with the current meta. But the official social media pages for Overwatch 2 have already dropped several new images and teaser trailers for the upcoming Season 7. Let's take a look at what we've got to look forward to this spooky season.
For more on the game, check out our Overwatch 2 tier list, which details where all of the heroes rank in the current meta for this season. We've also got a handy Overwatch 2 server guide, plus tips on how to fix PS5 login errors, in case Season 7 has you waiting in a queue.
Overwatch 2 Season 7 release time
Overwatch 2 Season 7 has the same release time as all other major updates, which will be at 6 pm BST on October 10, 2023. We've created a handy countdown timer below, so you can see exactly how much time you have to wait until the new season goes live.
We've also got release times for other areas of the world:
- 6 pm BST - British Summer Time
- 1 pm EST - United States Eastern Time
- 10 am PST - United States Pacific Time
- 4 am AEDT - Australian Eastern Day Time
- 2 am JST - Japan Standard Time
Overwatch 2 Season 7 release time
Season 7 Rise Of Darkness - New skins
The Overwatch 2 X page dropped a teaser trailer for Season 7 on October 4, 2023, and with it came our first look at the new Moira skin, based on Diablo 4's Lilith. Since Blizzard owns both the Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4 franchises, it's no surprise that the studio pulls inspiration from its other titles for new content.
Blizzard has in fact done this before, with Genji's Illidan skin, based on the infamous World of Warcraft boss. It's one of the rarest skins in the game and was only obtainable by attending Blizzcon back in 2019. Luckily, the Moira Lilith skin looks to be a standard part of Season 7, and will likely be purchasable from the in-game store.
You can check out the teaser trailer for Season 7 Rise of Darkness below!
New Hanzo mythic skin in Season 7
Much the same as other battle passes before Season 7, this new chapter of Overwatch 2 introduces a brand new mythic skin. This time, it's famed archer DPS hero Hanzo who receives the mythic treatment.
His new skin is based on the Onryō, a vengeful spirit from Japanese folklore. It's a fitting addition to Hanzo's wardrobe, as he channels the wrath of supernatural dragons to aid in his war against his own guilt at mortally wounding his younger brother, Genji.
The skin features three different colourways and will be totally customisable once level 80 of Season 7's battle pass is completed.
New season, new hero reworks
As well as providing an insight into the new season, Overwatch 2's official social media accounts also posted a teaser video for a potential rework on their infamous hacker DPS hero, Sombra.
Later it was confirmed that Sombra's gameplay would receive massive changes, with the new ability, Virus, being a sort of skill shot as it is a projectile that deals damage over time, doing more damage to hacked opponents.
Sombra Season 7 abilities
Starting with Season 7, these will be all of Sombra's abilities.
Weapon and ultimate
- Machine pistol: Short-range automatic weapon
- Ultimate: EMP - Deal damage to all nearby enemies equal to percentage of their current health, hacking them and destroying barriers around you
Abilities
- Hack: Hold to hack. Hacked enemies cannot use abilities and can be seen through walls. Hacked health packs spawn faster and can't be used by enemies. Taking damage interrupts the hack attempt.
- Virus: Infect enemies with a projectile that deals damage over time. Virus damages hacked enemies at a faster rate
- Translocator: Throw a beacon and teleport to it. Stealth cooldown is reduced after teleporting
Passive
- Stealth: When out of combat, become invisible and move faster
As you can see, the previous passive, Opportunist, is also gone. Opportunist would let Sombra see enemies with 50% or less HP through walls and deal an extra 25% damage to them.
In its place, we have Stealth, which will see Sombra play a bit more defensively, similar to how she used to be played in Overwatch 1.
There you have it, that's everything we have so far on the upcoming Rise of Darkness in Season 7! If you're looking to brush up on your meta, be sure to check out our support hero tier list, our DPS hero tier list, as well as our tank hero tier list.