Overwatch OP Sombra Already Got Nerfed, Play Of The Game Gets An Overhaul

When the newest champion of Overwatch, Sombra, was introduced, it marked the historic moment of all those teases finally culminating in one fantastic nerdgasm. During the brief snippets of gameplay that gamers tried during BlizzCon, however, many noticed that the character’s abilities can be quite disruptive and might even be considered overpowered. In an interview, Blizzard revealed that Sombra actually started out even more powerful and her current form is already nerfed.

Speaking to GameSpot, Overwatch game designer Michael Chiu commented on the matter of Sombra being somewhat OP during the demos at BlizzCon. Chiu pointed out that it was still too early to say that the character’s abilities will actually be disruptive to the game’s balance.

“Blizzcon is a hard place to get a full grasp on how the character is going to fit into the game, because like you said, you have all these matches where it's like, ten to 12 Sombras,” Chiu explained. “I think that while she is really strong, and she has a really appealing set of abilities, she's definitely not game-breaking. She may be game-changing, it'll be really interesting to see how some of her abilities work in the meta.”

Chiu also noted how Sombra was actually way more powerful before they decided to nerf her. One example is her prior permanent invisibility, which would have been beyond unbalanced. Now, she’s just invisible some of the time. Her hacking ability got toned down as well, adding cooldown and limiting the kinds of things she could make other players do.

In similar news, Play of the Game is also getting some changes, Kotaku reports. The publication spoke with Geoff Goodman, the game’s lead hero designer and he mentioned that POTG 2.0 is coming. The priority will be balancing the credit that players will get, where support characters will also get some loving.

“So we want to highlight the combo play itself,” Goodman said.