While Stadium was an instant hit with Overwatch 2 players, several changes are already planned for the new game mode.
Overwatch 2’s brand-new game mode Stadium launched earlier this week as part of Season 16: Dokiwatch. The mode sees players engage in a best-of-seven, round-based PvP format with 17 playable heroes, where they can build and upgrade hero kits throughout a 30–40 minute match.
While Stadium seems to be an instant hit for most players, Blizzard has already addressed some early feedback for the mode on its social media. Namely, its leaver problem, battle pass XP bug, and lack of crossplay support.
Blizzard addresses feedback for Overwatch 2’s new game mode Stadium
Most Overwatch 2 players seem to agree that Stadium is a breath of fresh air for the hero shooter, giving them new ways to play as their favourite heroes–or a few of them, at least. However, it has not had the smoothest of launches, with players also pointing out a number of issues with the new game mode.
Thankfully, Blizzard has acknowledged these issues rather quickly, starting with crossplay and leavers for the mode. Stadium is the most time-consuming game mode in Overwatch 2 yet, with match times that veer closer to MOBAs in length–roughly half an hour per match. That leaves Blizzard in a sticky position: when one player leaves the game and another isn’t found immediately, one team faces a significant disadvantage against the other. Hence, matches are cancelled entirely in Competitive Mode when players quit a match.
However, that can be a lot more demotivating to players who spend 30–40 minutes in a match, compared to those who spend 15-odd minutes in a Quick Play match. Hence, leavers are a bigger issue for Stadium. In response to this criticism, Blizzard argues that leaver rates in this mode are not higher than they are in Ranked. The developer might be misreading the complaints here; it’s not that players are only complaining about high leaver rates. They are also complaining about matches running for a whole half hour before they’re cancelled.
Blizzard has also responded to criticism of the mode’s lack of crossplay support, saying that it will be enabled in a future patch targeting a mid-Season 16 release. Some Battle Pass XP is also incorrectly being displayed as zero following a Stadium match, which Blizzard admits is a bug that will be fixed in the aforementioned patch. The amount of Comp Points awarded for Stadium matches will also be increased.
One of the bigger issues Blizzard acknowledges here is Stadium’s technical performance, which has proven to be downright terrible on consoles, especially last-gen ones. In this case, Blizzard plans to release a fix improving performance on older systems in a “near-term patch.”
