The next season of Overwatch 2 will bring more than the usual new hero and battle pass to the team shooter. Blizzard announced that Season 18 will introduce a new take on the progression system. As they currently stand, the progression numbers feel pretty divorced from the gameplay; this revamp introduces new ways to display your prowess to teammates and foes in matches as well as some welcome changes to how you see and equip your rewards. 

The new Progression 2.0 system has overhauled the visual side. For starters, there will be new portrait frames that increase in fanciness every 20 levels, capping at level 60. These Ascended borders will be displayed when you pick your hero for a match. Between the different Ascended frames, players will unlock five tiers of hero badges that also display in Hero Select under your portrait. 

In addition to the new flash, the Hero Select screen will show your allies a card with your top heroes on it. I doubt anyone will pay too much attention to cards in the Open Queue matches, so this seems like a Competitive-angled addition. It could help make it easy to build a team composition based on the whole group’s strengths, creating a test of your crew’s cooperation ability before the game even starts. Blizzard clarified that in Competitive, opponents won’t be able to see your portrait borders until 10-15 seconds after a match begins, and hero cards won’t be displayed to an enemy until one of you eliminates each other. That means nobody should be able to use your hero card against you in the ban phase.

I’ve almost never thought about the rewards I get for progression stats because it’s unclear when I’ve gotten a new item and I rarely bother searching for them in my cosmetics collections, so having a dedicated progression menu added should place a new focus on tracking how far you’ve gotten with a particular character. The hero-specific rewards on the horizon will be displayed on that page, and already-unlocked items can be equipped directly from that menu. Blizzard is also offering occasional Epic and Legendary loot box freebies as you rise through the ranks for each hero, which is always welcome. 

The progression levels will be rewarded retroactively when the season starts. For long-time fans, that means you can expect to see a whole bunch of rewards to browse through when you first log in during Season 18. For new players, there will be more credits and cosmetics available to unlock in the first 20 levels. That first set of 20 levels will also be scaled to be quicker to complete, while later levels will require more time.

The new season kicks off tomorrow, on August 26. Season 18 will also bring a new option for keyboard and mouse controls on console and the permanent addition of watery support hero Wuyang.