Competitive Overwatch 2 gets rank icons, soft rank reset, hero bans, map voting, and more

Rank icons are returning — for Overwatch 2! The 2025 Competitive Overwatch 2 updates also include the arrival of exclusive weapon charms, the Galactic weapon variant, a soft rank set, hero bans, and map voting.

The start of Overwatch 2 Season 15 boasts a bunch of exciting content, and one of the updates pertaining to the Competitive Overwatch 2 game mode is the appearance of player portraits — also known as Overwatch 2 rank icons. This feature gives ranked players more ways to show off.

"We're also excited to report that we're bringing rank icons back to the hero portraits while you're in Competitive play," senior systems designer Gavin Winter said. "We'd like to do more of this sort of thing in future, but for now, this will give players that want to show off their skill by sharing their gameplay an easier way to do that."

The 2025 season brings about the Galactic weapon variant as well. According to Winter, the first season of the year is a great opportunity to "shake things up" with a "big bang."

"For such a big season, it just feels logical to start with a big bang: our galactic weapons," he said. "In response to your feedback about competitive rewards, we worked hard to make this year's weapon variant out of this world."

Competitive players who are ranked Platinum and above can also get exclusive weapon charms alongside the player titles that already exist. "We'll start tracking your rank for this during Season 15 and hand out these rewards for the first time in Season 16," Winter said.

In terms of other Competitive Overwatch 2 reveals, the Season 15 rank reset is slated for Feb. 18. This is a soft reset. Then, after Season 15 kicks off, players can look forward to a new 6v6 ranked queue.

Winter revealed some information about Overwatch 2 hero bans, too. These are scheduled for Season 16.

"We know you've been asking for this feature, and we're looking forward to building our take on it," he said, also telling players to not worry. "We want a system that punches up at the strong or frustrating heroes without punching down on weaker niche picks. We also want a system that's very fast — that gives you nuanced control over outcomes and that we can tweak based on your feedback."

This year's Competitive Overwatch 2 roadmap includes map voting as well. The release date for this isn't exact yet, but it's slated for a future season.

"We're happy to announce that map voting will be coming to the game after hero bans," Winter said. "Both hero bans and map voting are exclusive to Competitive play.

That's all for now. Are you excited about the upcoming Overwatch 2 season? Stick around on esports.gg for more news and updates!