On October 6, 2026, Overwatch commenced its fifth season titled 'A Grim Doctrine' and it will feature the public playable debut of a vampiric hero named Doctrine.
Additionally, this season will feature a new anime collaboration, a new map and event, reworks to existing heroes, and Battle Pass adjustments.
Here's everything you can expect to see in Overwatch Season 5.
New Support Hero: Doctrine
Announced in a trailer at BlizzCon 2026, Doctrine arrives for the final story beat of The Reign of Talon storyline. However, Doctrine's story is linked to Doomfist, who just broke him out of the Grímsvötn prison, since both share an obscure past.
As a support hero, Doctrine brings both defensive and offensive capabilities. With his Eternal Scepter, he can heal allies and damage enemies from mid-to-long range.
Additionally, he deploys bat-like drones to boost the team's healing and attack speed, and he triggers his ultimate to redistribute life force across the battlefield, giving allies Overhealth while reducing enemy health.
New Map and Event
Doctrine's lore video isn't the last time we'll be seeing Grímsvötn. With Season 5, the prison arrives as a playable map for the Escort mode, the first new Escort map in years, actually.
The Season's event is connected to the month of Halloween as well. In Mystery Madness: Graveyard Games, you start as a random hero, and after each death, you come back with new random weapons to create a monstrous combination.
Adjusted Battle Pass System and Reworks
Many live-service games have left the standard single Battle Pass system behind. It's now Overwatch's turn, and they finally adjusted the system to feel way less strict and with less fear of missing out.
Battle Passes from Seasons 1–15 will be available again, and you can pick up where you left off. Players can also have both the current Battle Pass and an Unvaulted one active at the same time. Unvaulted Passes, however, do not include Overwatch Coins, XP Boosts, Mythic Prisms, Prestige Titles, or Mythic Hero and Weapon Skins.
On the rework side, the long-awaited adjustment for Sombra is here, changing the Hero from Damage to Support. This change targets specifically her abilities; Hotfix now heals a selected ally, and Cyberspace creates an area that heals allies while inflicting the new Weaken status on enemies.
Roadhog is also getting his own adjustments. His Scrap Gun now fires two bursts per volley with a stronger center projectile in each. The Trash Compactor ability now takes incoming enemy projectiles and sends an explosive shot back, which damage scales with how much punishment was absorbed.
Mythics and Crossover skins continue
As with most Seasons, A Grim Doctrine brings a collaboration with another franchise, this time with the anime Solo Leveling. Genji, Reaper, Anran, Reinhardt, and Lifeweaver will all be getting skins inspired by the characters of Solo Leveling, such as Sung Jin-Woo and his Shadow Monarchs, Cha Hae-In, and Choi Jong-In.
For Mythic skins, it's Wuyang with the Mythic Dragon Shaoxia Wuyang skin. This skin brings dragon-inspired cosmetics and VFX across its four levels.
In the past few days, the Overwatch team has been teasing on social media with an emoji of a frog.
Now we know that this was referencing the new Mythic weapon: Treblemaker, Lucio’s first Mythic weapon. One of the coolest Mythics by far, if I say so myself, bringing audio and visual effects while the weapon itself holds a charming frog inside.
For those looking for fashion that fits the season, both in-game and in real life, the Tech Witches collection brings witch hats and bats to help you achieve that. These new skins will be available for D.Mon, Shion, Juno, Sierra, and Jetpack Cat.
Fight together, Stay together
Team Drives will return on October 29–November 1. The competitive mode allows players to stay squadded up to progress through Gladiator Ranks. With Season 5, though, Team Drives also makes it way to Quick Play.
Will you be joining Overwatch in this new spooky Season and final chapter of the Reign of Talon? What do you think of the reworks of Sombra and Roadhog? If you have any thoughts on the matter, let us know in the comments, on Reddit, or in the poll.
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