Overwatch Priority Passes Introduced To Reduce Queue Times

The Overwatch community has been complaining about the game’s long queue time since its release, especially users in DPS roles. Finally responding to complaints, Blizzard Entertainment announces the newest Overwatch Developer Update which will offer Priority Passes to players.

Through an 8-minute developer update, Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan revealed yesterday that “Priority Passes” will be introduced in a future update to give players—especially DPS players—a faster queue time.

Priority Passes will serve as a reward to competitive players who will enter flex queues to try out every role available (Tank, Support, Damage). They are completely free, and players can collect up to 40 Priority Passes.

Winning games in flex queues using any type of role will earn players lots of Priority Passes, although losing players can still earn a few. Win or lose, players can gain access to Priority Passes. After all, the goal of the update is to speed up the game for everyone.

These passes, however, won’t guarantee that the game can instantly match players to other players. It will only expedite the queue times, and Kaplan made sure that Priority Passes’ queue times are much faster than normal queue times. For transparency, the next update will also include computations and comparisons for new versus normal queue times every match.

Aside from Priority Passes, Kaplan also teased some important updates for Overwatch’s Replay Viewer. This feature will be updated with more options for professional observers and content creators. Professional esports observers will soon be able to customize their user interface, change character outlines, and control virtual cameras. Content creators, meanwhile, will be able to study and observe game replays.

All these new Overwatch features will be heading to the Public Test Realm (PTR) for bug testing before entering the live servers sometime in the near future. They will get more improvements and iterations right after the release based on mass feedback.

Jeff Kaplan didn’t reveal the specific date for when these changes will occur in the beta, but they’ll likely be previewed on the PTR to give players, professional esports observers, and content creators time to prepare.