Welcome to Overwatch
In Overwatch, you control one of several heroes in competitive 6-person team shooting matches. Battle over objectives, take down the other team, and achieve victory.
Choosing Your Heroes
Before you begin a game of Overwatch, you’ll need to choose a hero to play. Maybe controlling a cannon-toting, genetically-engineered ape from the moon appeals to you. Or, you might prefer zipping around as a teleporting, time-traveling freedom fighter. Who do you want to be?
Playing Your Role
Tank
Tank heroes soak damage and break apart fortified positions, like closely-grouped enemies and narrow chokepoints. If you’re a tank, you lead the charge.Damage
Damage heroes are responsible for seeking out, engaging, and defeating the enemy using their varied tools, abilities and play styles.Support
Support heroes empower their allies, healing and shielding them, boosting their damage, and providing vital utility. As support, you’re the backbone of your team’s survival.
Maps
In Overwatch, heroes do battle in diverse locations around the world. From the technological marvel of Numbani to the manufacturing powerhouse of Volskaya, each map has a unique layout and specific win conditions that your team must meet in order to secure victory.
Playing Overwatch: The Basics
Before you jump onto the battlefield, we recommend that you play the short tutorial. It’s a quick, fun introduction to the basics of Overwatch.
Abilities
Abilities are the unique powers and gear Overwatch’s heroes use to defeat their opponents, protect their teammates and move around maps—they’re the key to winning a match.
You’ll fire your primary weapon (PC: 
; PS4: 
; XB1: 
) most commonly. Whether your weapon is short-range, long-range, enemy-freezing or projectile-firing, you don’t need to find ammo for it—just reload (PC: 
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) and keep blasting away! Some weapons have secondary fire modes (PC: 
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), variations on their primary weapon’s attack.
Different heroes also have diverse movement and support abilities, among them hard-light sentry turrets, sonic speed boosts, and short-range teleportation (just to name a few). Some abilities are limited by cooldowns—a short period of time before the ability can be used again.
Ultimate Abilities
Ultimates (PC: 
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; XB1: 
) are game-changers, powerful abilities that can turn the tide of battle. You automatically charge them over time, but you can gain charge faster when you deal damage. As long as you don't switch heroes, your ultimate's charge level will stick around even if you die.