Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Overwatch 2’s April Fools’ Day patch returns with more silly voice lines and broken hero changes.
Blizzard Entertainment is once again bringing back Overwatch 2’s April Fools’ Day mini-event, which throws the entire game into chaos with googly eyes, broken hero changes and highly unserious voice lines. These changes are so widespread that they’re bound to affect competitive play, which is why they’re only accessible in a new Arcade mode called ‘Balanced Overwatch’.
‘Balanced Overwatch’ throws Overwatch 2 out of balance for April Fools’ Day
Blizzard has released a full list of patch notes for Overwatch 2’s April Fools’ Day patch, but even that might be insufficient to fully capture how widespread these changes are. The patch not only overhauls every hero kit to hilarious effect, but gives every character googly eyes and silly voice lines that call back to inside jokes within the game’s fandom. For example, Brigitte is now Bigitte, scaled up by 1.5x in size and armed with a massive shield.
Mauga on the other hand, has become ‘Smallga’, a tiny version of himself with a higher-pitched voice and 25HP in total to work with. D.Va’s Self-Destruct knockback has been increased by 900%, sending unfortunate souls flying halfway across the map if they’re caught in its blast. Ashe’s robot helper BOB is now FRED, Mercy’s Damage Boost is now a ‘Damage Staff’, Torbjorn’s turrets can now stick on walls… you get the idea.
The only character unaffected by these changes is sadly Venture, whose trial weekend ended on Monday. The hero will return next season, and likely become subject to more April Fools’ shenanigans in 2025. Personally, though, the best parts of this update aren’t even in the sweeping gameplay changes, but the new voice lines. You can’t hear Hanzo go, “NOMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM,’ or Brigitte say, “Mace to the mace to the mace to the face!” any other time of the year, after all.
In case you need a better reason to check out the update, it also comes with new challenges that grant limited-time sprays until April 8. After that, all the googly eyes, funny voice lines and April Fools’ sprays will sadly get vaulted until next year. You can find the full patch notes here.
