Blizzard Entertainment has revealed everything coming with Overwatch 2 Season 20: Vendetta, which begins on December 9th, 2025.
From the new damage hero Vendetta, competitive updates, and more, here’s how the new update will impact casual and professional play.
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New Hero Vendetta
Season 20 brings forth the first melee-focused damage hero in Overwatch 2’s history, Vendetta. The new hero arrives with a unique kit of abilities and perks to shake up the meta. She also introduces a new status effect called ‘Sunder’, which ignores damage reduction and instantly destroys overhealth.
Here is a summarised breakdown of her abilities and perks:
- Weapon
- Palatine Fang – Greatsword with a three swing combo ending with an overhead slash.
- Warding Stance – Reduce frontal damage and deflect melee. Blocking depletes energy.
- Abilities
- Whirlwind Dash -Rush forward with a circular slash.
- Soaring Slice – Throw your sword and leap towards it.
- Projected Edge – When in Warding Stance, consume energy to fire a wide projectile.
- Passive
- Onslaught – Striking enemies increased movement and attack speed.
- Minor Perks
- Siphoning Strike – Overhead Strike grants 30% lifesteal
- Relentless – Onslaught stacks three more times. Attack speed increases by 5% and movement 4% per stack.
- Major Perks
- Swift vengeance – Target the player who landed a killing blow on you. Eliminating them grants 125 overhealth and resets cooldowns.
- Raging Storm – Whirlwind Dash hits three more times for 40 additional damage.
Only time will tell where Vendetta sits in the meta. Some of the most popular damage characters used in the OWCS World Finals include Sojourn, Freja and Symmetra, heroes with great range and mobility.
Competitive Updates
Blizzard Entertainment also shared updates coming to Overwatch 2’s competitive playlist, making it easier to reach Top 500 while cracking down on cheaters.
Tweaks will be made to Challenger Score in competitive, with win streaks and queue bonuses bringing greater contributions to the rank climb. Furthermore, the new update will refund any lost rank progress to players who matched with a cheater after the offender is banned.
High-ranking players will also enjoy increased social visibility, allowing them to stand out from the crowd and be recognised by the community during matches.
With these new changes, fans may see new talent rise to become some of the best players in the world, and potentially partake in the OWCS scene for the 2026 season and beyond.
Stadium
While an esports scene has yet to be properly established for Stadium, Overwatch 2 continues to expand on the game’s latest mode.
The new season introduces Doomfist and Wuyang as the latest heroes to play, bringing a new selection of powers and builds to the mode.
Other additions are also coming to Stadium, including a new Top 500 tier, a League Six Reaper Chase skin to reward players who climb the ranks, and the introduction of the China Control map.
Winter Wonderland Returns
Overwatch 2 will celebrate the festive holidays with the Winter Wonderland event running from December 9th to January 7th, 2026. The Frozen Demon Junkrat and Frozen Mountaineer Cassidy skins will also be available to earn.
The prop hunt mode, Mischief & Magic, will be available throughout the event. Halfway through Winter Wonderland, a new mechanic will be added to the limited-time mode where props will be able to fight back against the hunters.
Winter Wonderland also brings a three-path reward system to earn a variety of festive cosmetics. Complete challenges to earn Winter Cookies and unlock Jingle Tracer, Krampus Junkrat, and Santa Claus Torbjorn.
The new season also introduces the gifting system, available exclusively on Battle.net. Players will be able to send battle passes, currency bundles, and premium packs to their friends, outfitting them with some of the best skins in the game.
New Skins
With every season comes a variety of new skins to be unlocked by casual and professional players alike.
Two new Mythics will arrive in Season 20, including the Divine Desperado hero skin for Cassidy and the Capsule Cannon weapon skin for Orisa.
A new battle pass will be available to purchase and unlock throughout the season, featuring five Legendary skins, three Epic skins, emotes, charms, and other cosmetics themed around the winter holidays.
The Avatar collaboration returns from December 16th to 29th, 2025, offering skins for Mei, Zenyatta, Genji, Orisa, Venture and Kiriko based on the popular show.
Finally, new collections will be available at the in-game store. These include the festive Cozy collection, a cold and mythical Borealis line-up, and a criminally stylish Heist selection of skins.
How Season 20 will Impact Esports
The OWCS 2025 season has concluded following the results of the World Finals in DreamHack Stockholm. Nevertheless, the changes introduced here will have long-standing effects that could impact the OWCS 2026 season.
It will be interesting to see whether Vendetta makes an impact on the scene as teams compete for a place in next year’s World Finals. Sunder in particular is a mechanic that will likely challenge some of the best Tanks in the game, and a strong counter to defensive ultimates like Lucio’s Sound Barrier.
The introduction of new heroes, in addition to the balance changes released every month, could shift the meta in drastic ways and allow more niche characters to challenge the best characters in the game.
Source: https://esportsinsider.com/
