The making of Hazard in Overwatch 2: Gameplay, counters, and synergies with Alec Dawson and Kenny Hudson

The Overwatch 2 playtest for the new tank hero is well underway, coinciding with the excitement of the inaugural Overwatch Champion Series (OWCS) World Finals at DreamHack Stockholm. At the venue with esports.gg are lead gameplay designer Alec Dawson and senior game producer Kenny Hudson, and we sat down with them for an interview! We went over the development of Hazard, his strengths and weaknesses, plus the behind-the-scenes of what it takes to create this hero.

In their interview with esports.gg Dawson and Hudson revealed that Hazard's design was centered around a distinctive spike motif to showcase him as both an enemy and ally. For example, the Overwatch 2 team explored how spikes could function as both an attacking and defensive tool, which led to abilities like Jagged Wall and Spike Guard.

"Really early on, the Jagged Wall was more gooey, but it didn't feel dangerous. So it got more crystallized and more hardened. That really solidified the gameplay read of it like, 'Oh, this is something I don't want to touch,'" Dawson said, adding that Jagged Wall's audio cue was designed to warn players of potential danger.

Hudson agreed, comparing the early iteration of the ability to Mei's Ice Wall. When a player puts up an Ice Wall behind someone, the latter would typically back into since it doesn't damage them. "You're just like, 'Why aren't I moving?'" he explained. "But we noticed when that was happening with Jagged Wall, you're like, 'Why am I taking damage?'"

Hudson then described Hazard as a disruption-focused tank with high mobility. He's designed to dive into enemy backlines, and what makes him even more deadly is that his abilities can chain combos. Therefore, he's quite dangerous against low-health and low-mobility heroes like Ana and Zenyatta. However, Hazard is vulnerable when using Spike Guard since crowd-control abilities like Ana’s Sleep Dart can still counter him. This means players must carefully think about team compositions when Hazard's in a match.

"Yeah, characters like Junkrat who can trap him or interrupt him," Dawson added. "Anytime you interrupt his flow, it can throw off that combo potential. And it puts you in a bad spot if you don't know how to get out."

He continued, noting Hazard's potential for lots of creative gameplay — especially with unique mobility options like using his Vault passive to scale walls and grab onto ledges. Meanwhile, Hudson told esports.gg that he's excited to see how players combo Hazard's Downpour ultimate. An example of a combo would be Downpour and Hanzo's Dragonstrike.

"We saw a lot of cool combos like when Hazard fires his ult from behind a wall and roots everyone," he said. "And then you have Hanzo waiting on the other side with the dragon."

At DreamHack Stockholm, esports.gg also interviewed Overwatch 2 senior narrative designer Jude Stacey and Hazard voice actor Conor McLeod as well. Both of them emphasized the collaborative effort in bringing the new tank hero to life in terms of story, voice lines, and interactions. Dawson and Hudson echoed this point and added to it, recalling how Hazard’s athleticism and energetic personality shaped his Violent Leap ability and Vault passive. According to them, Hazard's gameplay mechanics and character identity evolved together.

In terms of what seeing all of this hard work pay off means to them, Hudson revealed that it can be nerve-wracking at first, but positive feedback from players quickly eases those nerves. Additionally, although there hasn’t been time to fully analyze the feedback yet, the initial responses have been encouraging.

"I think even in the show match yesterday, you could see by Round 3, Reinforce [started] to use the wall in certain ways, so it's just awesome to see players understanding how to use these cooldowns and using their own creativity to find new ways of using the wall that hopefully we don't have to patch out," Dawson added. "We'll see how it all ends up. It's been awesome so far."

Dawson then shared that the guiding principle behind every hero design in Overwatch 2 is to make them feel like the main character in their own video game. Each hero should also offer a mastery curve that keeps players interested for hundreds and hundreds of hours.

"Hazard actually switched with Juno in terms of their launch schedules," he continued. "So it was something where we need a bit more extra time. And looking back, I think it was a really good decision. [We] just [gave] ourselves a bit more time to make sure he's tuned and tweaked correctly for everyone to enjoy."

Hudson agreed and elaborated, "We work with so many people across the team who have expertise in so many different fields. So like what to do with translucent layers on the back of the spikes and stuff like that. [There are also] gameplay things like tuning and numbers and damage and how long to root someone if people are going to do CC and stuff like that."

As for parting words, both Hudson and Dawson said they cannot wait to check out the player feedback from the current playtest and use that information to inform Hazard's official release in Overwatch 2 Season 14.

"I'm really excited to get home and look at the feedback that we're getting from the trial right now," Hudson said. "One of the things that we've been really trying to do is take that feedback and integrate it as fast as possible for the release. Our teams seem like they really appreciate just going through and seeing what people like, what needs improvement, and applying it to a really successful launch."

That's all for now. Stick around on esports.gg for more Overwatch 2 interviews, news, and updates!