In Overwatch 2 Bastion loses self-repair and tank mode, gains a hat

Bastion with baseball cap and bird
(Image credit: Blizzard)

As part of the 2021 Overwatch League Grand Finals, Blizzard went into some detail on the changes coming to Bastion in Overwatch 2. For starters there's the visual redesign, which character art director Arnold Tsang said was about remaking the omnic with "sleeker, more modern materials" as well as, yes, adding a hat. Bastion's abilities and ultimate have also been reworked. 

In Overwatch 2, Bastion's self-repair ability will be replaced by a tactical grenade bound to alt-fire. These projectiles can bounce off walls, but will stick to enemies and floor before detonating with a knockback effect after a brief delay. In its recon configuration—the one where it walks around—Bastion's weapon will no longer have spread, damage falloff will be reduced, and fire rate cut in half. Bastion will be able to "poke at much longer ranges and play a little more like a pseudo-sniper," lead hero designer Geoff Goodman said, "kind of like his recon form theme was always meant to be."

Switching between configurations will be on a 10-second cooldown, and the transformation sequence will take eight seconds to play out. In sentry mode Bastion will be able to move while shooting, though at a slower rate. In this configuration it's got unlimited ammo, but damage is reduced by 40%.

Finally, Bastion's ultimate will no longer turn it into a tank, but instead switch to an artillery configuration in which players can choose three locations on the map—anywhere on the entire map—to bomb. They'll have a time limit in which to choose locations, however.

Overwatch 2 doesn't have a release date yet, but isn't expected until 2022. Overwatch recently lost its executive producer, with Chacko Sonny leaving Blizzard on Friday.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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