Welcome to Overwatch

In Overwatch, you control one of several heroes in competitive 6-person team shooting matches. Battle over objectives, take down the other team, and achieve victory.

Playing Your Role

Offense

Defense

Tank

Support

Offense

Offense heroes are the damage dealers on their team. Your goal: seek out, engage, and destroy the enemy.

Defense

Defense heroes control the battlefield, interrupting enemy attacks and fortifying locations. As a defense hero, your job is to stop the opposing team’s advance.

Tank

Tank heroes soak damage and break apart fortified positions, like closely-grouped enemies and narrow chokepoints. If you’re a tank, you lead the charge.

Support

Support heroes empower their allies, healing and shielding them, boosting their damage, and providing vital utility. As support, you’re the backbone of your team’s survival.

Maps

In Overwatch, heroes do battle in diverse locations around the world. From the technological marvel of Numbani to the manufacturing powerhouse of Volskaya, each map has a unique layout and specific win conditions that your team must meet in order to secure victory.

Assault

Attackers fight to capture a series of objectives; defenders hold them off until time runs out.

Temple of Anubis

Hanamura

Volskaya Industries

Escort

Attackers escort a payload to a delivery point, while defenders strive to keep the payload from reaching its destination before time elapses.

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Dorado

Route 66

Control

Two teams fight to hold a single objective at a time; the first team to win two rounds wins the match.

Lijiang Tower

Ilios

Nepal

Assault/Escort

Attackers first capture a payload, then escort it to its destination; defenders attempt to hold them back.

King's Row

Numbani

Hollywood

Playing Overwatch: The Basics

Before you jump onto the battlefield, we recommend that you play the short tutorial. It’s a quick, fun introduction to the basics of Overwatch.

Abilities

Abilities are the unique powers and gear Overwatch’s heroes use to defeat their opponents, protect their teammates and move around maps—they’re the key to winning a match.

You’ll fire your primary weapon (PC: Left-click; PS4: R2; XB1: RT) most commonly. Whether your weapon is short-range, long-range, enemy-freezing or projectile-firing, you don’t need to find ammo for it—just reload (PC: R; PS4: Square; XB1: X) and keep blasting away! Some weapons have secondary fire modes (PC: Right-click; PS4: L2; XB1: LT), variations on their primary weapon’s attack.

Different heroes also have diverse movement and support abilities, among them hard-light sentry turrets, sonic speed boosts, and short-range teleportation (just to name a few). Some abilities are limited by cooldowns—a short period of time before the ability can be used again.

Quick Melee

Every hero can perform a melee attack (PC: V; PS4/XB1: Right thumbstick), a quick, close-range strike that doesn’t use any ammo. Use it to finish off weak opponents or when you need to reload.

Ultimate Abilities

Ultimates (PC: Q; PS4: Triangle; XB1: Y) are game-changers, powerful abilities that can turn the tide of battle. You automatically charge them over time, but you can gain charge faster when you deal damage. As long as you don't switch heroes, your ultimate's charge level will stick around even if you die.

Playing A Match

Selecting Heroes:

Before a match begins, you’ll need to pick a hero. Consider the map, talk with your teammates, and keep an eye on your team composition when choosing your hero. If your team is on defense and your first goal is to hold an objective, you may want more defense heroes like Junkrat and Bastion.

As the tactical situation changes during a match, you may find that you’d like to change the hero you’re playing. It’s easy; in your team’s starting area, press (PC: H; PS4/XB1: D-Pad left) and select your new hero. Just remember that your ultimate ability's charge level will be reset!

Health and Death

The amount of damage a hero can take before dying is represented by their Health . Health can be recovered by collecting health packs, found in fixed locations throughout each map, or by certain heroes’ abilities (especially Support heroes). When a hero’s Health is reduced to zero, they die, but they’ll return (“respawn”) shortly. While you wait for a dead teammate to respawn, your team is at a disadvantage. Try your best to keep them (and yourself) alive!

In addition to Health, heroes can receive boosts to their survivability in the form of shields and armor, which absorb damage before Health.

Ending a Match

When one team fulfills a map’s victory conditions, the match is over, and that team’s won. All players will be able to see everyone’s contributions, vote on the most valuable players, give feedback on the match, and watch the Play of the Game. You can customize your Play of the Game pose with items from Loot Boxes.

Chokepoints

Teams of heroes frequently pass through narrow areas to reach objectives—the places where big, multi-hero battles break out. If you’re protecting a chokepoint, take a position out of the enemy team’s line of fire and deploy heavy defenses (Junkrat’s Steel Trap; Bastion’s Configuration: Sentry; or Torbjörn’s turret).

If you’re attempting to move through a chokepoint, choose heroes with high-mobility abilities (Tracer’s Blink; Winston’s Jump Pack; Hanzo or Genji’s Wall Climb), those who can punish tightly packed or groups of enemies with area damage (Pharah’s Rocket Launcher), or provide support for multiple teammates at once (Lúcio’s Sound Barrier).

Working as a Team

Don’t go into combat alone if you can avoid it! When you stick with your teammates, you’ll ensure that your support heroes can easily protect allies, and coordinate your attacks on opponents.

Making Progress

As you play games of Overwatch, you’ll gain levels, unlocking new customization options to make your heroes look and sound unique! Customize your characters in the Hero Gallery (accessible from the main menu).

Loot

A random selection of customization options come packaged in Loot Boxes—you’ll unlock one box every time you level up, and can purchase more in the in-game Shop. Loot Boxes have a chance to contain credits you can use to acquire any specific cosmetics you want. You’ll also receive a new Portrait Frame every 10 levels (until you’ve earned them all).

Achievements and Trophies

When you accomplish a feat of persistence or talent, you’ll unlock a commemorative badge of honor. You can view a detailed breakdown of your achievements and trophies (along with your experience level and play style) and share them with your friends from the Career Overview pane of the main menu (or the top menu of this website).

Game Modes

There are many ways to play Overwatch. We recommend starting with the tutorial to learn the fundamentals of play; once you’ve completed it, head to the Main Menu to try out:

Practice Range

Visit a training area and experiment with your abilities against practice bots. Use this mode to hone your skills or learn a new hero.

Play/Practice vs A.I.

Play against AI-controlled opponents on any map you choose. Use these modes to try out different maps and learn how multiple heroes work.

Quick Play

Square off against other players at your skill level.

Custom Game

Change the rules of the game with custom modifiers (like disallowing heroes, increasing Ultimate ability charge rate, etc.).

Weekly Brawl

Take part in experimental matches with rulesets that change each week.

Competitive Play

Compete against other players and work your way up the ranks.

Playing With Friends

Joining up with random players or filling out a group with AI-controlled heroes can be an extremely fun way to experience Overwatch, but one of the most rewarding ways to play is by grouping up with your friends.

You can invite any of your friends (or add new friends) to a group from the social menu—accessible by pressing (PC: O; PS4/XB1: D-Pad Down). While in a group, you have your own voice and chat message channels, and can type a message or talk with your friends through a microphone.

Welcome to Overwatch

Choosing Your Heroes

Playing Your Role

Offense

Defense

Tank

Support

Maps

Assault

Temple of Anubis

Hanamura

Volskaya Industries

Escort

Watchpoint: Gibraltar

Dorado

Route 66

Control

Lijiang Tower

Ilios

Nepal

Assault/Escort

King's Row

Numbani

Hollywood

Playing Overwatch: The Basics

Abilities

Quick Melee

Ultimate Abilities

Playing A Match

Selecting Heroes:

Health and Death

Ending a Match

Chokepoints

Working as a Team

Making Progress

Loot

Achievements and Trophies

Game Modes

Practice Range

Play/Practice vs A.I.

Quick Play

Custom Game

Weekly Brawl

Competitive Play

Playing With Friends

Stay Connected

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