The highlight of the Dec. 5 patch for Overwatch 2 was, undoubtedly, the long-awaited tank hero Mauga finally hitting the servers. Yet with the patch also came some more subtle changes that could have players a bit confused.
After logging in to play some Overwatch 2 with a friend last night, we spawned on Route 66, and of course, I locked in Widowmaker. I realized immediately that something felt off. The problem? My crosshair.
Deep in the season eight patch notes lies a subtle and cryptic change to crosshair customizations for a select few heroes that you might have noticed is making your aim a bit less smooth this week.
This change is frustrating since most of the news around the patch has concerned the newest tank hero and battle pass theme for season eight, which offers another entry into the stacked customization options for heroes across the game.
Players who read the patch notes thoroughly may have spotted the crosshair changes, though they’re a bit difficult to understand without loading into the game yourself.
Overwatch 2’s many reticle settings allow players to create many different types of crosshairs, from traditional lines to dots and anything in between. The key tweak in the Dec. 5 patch changes the way the dot setting works.
“Players who have previously hidden their Dot by setting its Opacity to zero will now need to set the Dot’s Size to zero instead,” the patch notes read.
In truth, this change makes perfect sense. Instead of hiding a dot beneath an opacity setting, players like me who prefer a standard crosshair with two intersecting lines can now just decrease the dot’s size until it disappears.
But since all players who previously had hidden the dot in the middle of a crosshair had done so by turning down the opacity, you’ll now log in to find that most of your reticles will have a very subtle dot in the center.
To get rid of this dot, all players have to do is go into settings and change the dot size down to zero.
Though the appearance of the dot is likely the most noticeable change, there are a few other subtle reticle customization settings that will now offer even more options for those looking to set up their hero profiles to perfection.
In addition to the dot size and opacity being separated, players also now have options for new outline colors (aside from just black) and can also separate the opacity of the outline from the opacity of the main reticle.
The last crosshair change doesn’t affect every hero, only those with multiple weapon modes. This means any hero that can scope in, so snipers Widowmaker, Ana, and Ashe, but also heroes with more than one weapon configuration, like Bastion, Mercy, Ramattra, and Lifeweaver.
This reticle change allows for more customization when switching in and out of these multiple weapon modes. Players can now set different crosshairs for each mode. So if you’ve always wanted a smaller crosshair when scoped in, you’re now able to do so.
Overwatch 2 lead hero designer Alec Dawson confirmed these crosshair changes and also indicated that more customization options will be coming in future patches. So if you log in and can’t hit your shots, that might be why.
