Overwatch's McCree Will Be Nerfed Soon, Blizzard Says

Overwatch developer Blizzard has discussed upcoming changes to its team-based shooter, and confirmed it will nerf McCree first, before tweaking D.Va.

Speaking in an interview with Eurogamer, director Jeff Kaplan said McCree’s fan attack, during which he unloads his entire clip into the enemy, will have reduced damage so that it is less effective against tank class characters.

"What we're looking at right now is his fan the hammer damage. We're going to reduce it," he said. "The goal there is to make it so that McCree can still use his combo that we love, which is the flashbang and fan the hammer on somebody like Tracer. McCree should absolutely kill that Tracer.

"What we're not crazy about, right now is the way in which McCree can absolutely shred tanks. We want to bring the fan the hammer damage down, so he's still killing the squishies and the medium strength heroes, but he's less effective against the tanks. If he times everything perfectly and gets every single shot off, he's got a shot against a tank, but it's not the instant 'I win' button that it is right now."

Since the damage of McCree’s fan is "causing a lot of concern in the community" and Blizzard wants its players to feel the studio responds quickly to make required changes, the update is likely to be available soon.

Kaplan later said the changes required to D.Va are less obvious, and hinted that her damage or survivability could be tweaked in the future.

"Obviously her damage has come into question from a lot of people," he said. "You have to be really close to do effective damage with D.Va and we might look at that. We might also look at her survivability. A lot of time, D.Va can get herself into situations where she's a tank and it feels like she should be there, but then she gets knocked out of that mech so quickly."

Elsewhere in the interview, Kaplan said the game's tick rate issue, which has been used to criticise hit-detection in Overwatch, was being misunderstood.

Overwatch launched at the end of May for PC, PS4, and Xbox One behind a generally positive critical response. It became a quick success, attracting some 7 million players right out of the gate. This makes it "one of the most successful global game launches of all time," Blizzard said.

For more on Overwatch, check out GameSpot's review and what other critics are saying.