The new Season of Overwatch 2 is on the horizon as Season 8: Call of the Hunt launches on December 5. This will be one of the biggest updates yet, with a sizable 3.6GB patch pre-download already available. With the official launch of new hero Mauga, a new Battle Pass, and hero balance changes, there’s loads of fresh, new content for players to sink their teeth into. 

While Blizzard is quite hush-hush about their updates before they’re released, here’s a brief glimpse into the Season 8 patch preview, as revealed in the official Director’s Take. Keep reading for all the changes coming to the popular FPS, including the patch release date, Mauga’s abilities, and all hero changes. 

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON 8: RELEASE DATE

The new Overwatch 2 Season 8, The Call of the Hunt, will go live on Tuesday, December 5. The exact release times for the major servers are below.

  • 12 PM PT
  • 7 PM GMT
  • 3 PM ET

As the new patch notes become live, Overwatch 2 matchmaking queues and live servers will be temporarily disabled to allow the changes to take effect. Players will have to install the updates for Overwatch 2 from the Battle.net launcher.

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON 8: NEW HERO MAUGA

The last patch, Season 7, saw the release of Samoa, a best-of-three control map home to a busy urban metropolis, fiery volcano, and a tropical beach. As a native Samoan, long-anticipated Tank hero dual-wielding gunner Mauga will finally be released after his brief free taster weekend in November. 

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In case you missed it, here’s a brief rundown of Mauga’s abilities as he officially goes live on December 6. We expect he’ll emerge onto live-servers overpowered before Blizzard Entertainment balances him out to suit the current meta. 

Berserker (Passive)

  • Gain temporary health while dealing damage, with a maximum of 150 Overhealth
  • Overhealth starts decaying approximately 2 seconds after Mauga last did critical damage, at a rate of 5 Overhealth decay per second

Incendiary Chaingun (Primary Fire)

Aka “Gunny.”

  • An automatic weapon that ignites enemies on repeated impacts, with 4.5 damage per shot. 

Volatile Chaingun (Secondary Fire)

Aka “Cha-Cha” 

  • An automatic weapon that deals critical damage to burning enemies, with 4.5 damage per shot. 

Overrun

  • Charge forward to stomp and launch enemies. Mauga is unstoppable while charging and immune to most knockbacks, knock-ups, and crowd-control abilities.  
  • Automatically ends after taking eight footsteps. 

Cardiac Overdrive

  • Nearby allies take reduced damage and heal by dealing damage. Mauga also gains the effects of Cardiac overdrive. 

Cage Fight (Ultimate)

  • Deploys a barrier that traps Mauga and enemies inside. Mauga gains unlimited ammo while inside.
  • Mauga and anyone caught in the cylinder will be leashed by a chain and unable to leave the cylinder until the ability expires.
  • Killing Mauga will not destroy the barrier, it will need to be shot down or waited out for the ability to end. 

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON 8: BATTLE PASS THEME

While many players wanted a winter wonderland-themed Season 8 Battle Pass in line with the holidays, Blizzard has shocked fans by revealing “Call of the Hunt” for Season 8, alongside the Batlle of the Beasts limited-time 4v4 PvPvE game mode. In this new game mode, players will be able to play Mauga for free as the only Tank available, alongside other beast-themed heroes. May the best hunter win!

Although it's missing some festive cheer, the Season 8 Battle Pass has plenty of animal-themed cosmetics for players to sink their teeth into, including the crown jewel, the Grand Beast Mythic Orisa skin. Widowmaker, Mauga, and Hanzo are also getting some love in the new Battle Pass.

As with every new Battle Pass, Blizzard likes to go all out for the new Season, so expect some wild sprays, voice lines, weapon charms, coming soon.

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON 8: HERO CHANGES

Starting from Season 8, whenever players swap to a different hero in-game, their retained Ultimate charge will be lowered to only 15% instead of the current 25% battery retention. This is to punish repeated hero-swapping. 

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Here are the early patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 8. Remember that these changes aren’t set in stone until they’re available on live servers. 

Tank

Doomfist 

Meteor Strike

  • Regenerates 75 health per second while in the air. 
  • Ultimate charge increased

Junker Queen

Scatter Gun

  • Spread reduced by 8%.

Ramattra

  • Base health reduced from 300 to 200.
  • Base armor increased from 0 to 100.

Void Accelorator

  • Increased size and damage to his projectile primary fire. 

Sigma

Experimental Barrier

  • Regeneration rate reduced from 100 to 85 health per second.

Winston 

Tesla Cannon 

  • Now ignores enemy damage reduction from their armor. 

Damage

Mei

Endothermic Blaster

  • Maximum ammo reduced from 150 to 120.

Sombra

EMP 

  • Raise EMP’s ability lockout time by 1.5 seconds to 3 seconds total. 
  • Damage reduction from 30% of enemy health to 25%. 

Soldier: 76

Biotic Field

  • Heal cooldown increased from 15 seconds to 18 seconds. 

Torbjörn

Overload

  • Overhealth increased from 75 to 100.

Tracer

Pulse Pistols

  • Damage changed to 6 damage per shot instead of 5.5, like it was previously. 

Support

Baptiste

Biotic Launcher (Primary Fire)

  • Ammo lowered from 45 to 36

Brigitte

Whip Shot

  • Damage reverted to what it was in previous patches. 

Kiriko

Healing Ofuda

  • Projectile speed increased from 14 meters to 18 meters per second.

Protection Suzu

  • Invulnerability duration reduced from 085 seconds to 0.65 seconds.
  • Healing explosion increased from 40 to 80 health.

Mercy

Valkyrie

  • No longer disconnects Caduceus Staff from its target upon Ultimate activation.

OVERWATCH 2 SEASON 8: COMPETITIVE UPDATES

  • MMR Decay only occurs for ranked play at the start of a new season, but doesn't apply to roles that qualify for a rank. For example, if a player won five games and have a Competitive Upade, their rank will not decay.
  • If a player does not have a rank already who won three games and did not get a Competitive Update, their rank will decay at the end of that season.
  • If the player does have a rank, they only need to play one match in the season to keep their rank for the next season.

FINAL THOUGHTS

That's all our information on the early patch notes for Overwatch 2 Season 8 - we'll update this article if anything changes. We can’t wait to spring into action with Call of the Hunt and the new cosmetics to open our wallets for. Mauga is the first new hero since Illari launched, and we’re sure he’ll overrun the meta one giant footstep at a time. 

Want more Overwatch 2 content? Check out our complete hero unlock guide, the ranking system, the best crosshairs, the rarest skins, and how to play crossplay!