Overwatch Roadhog rework interview: “You can’t rework Roadhog where he doesn’t

Roadhog will soon receive a major update in Overwatch Season 5. During a group interview with esports.gg and others, the Overwatch team talked about this Roadhog rework.

Overwatch Roadhog rework interview

During an interview about Doctrine at BlizzCon 2026, a publication brought up Season 5’s Roadhog rework. In response, hero designer Scott Kennedy talked about Roadhog’s Chain Hook and his role as a tank hero.

“The hook is the identity of the hero. You can’t rework Roadhog where he doesn’t have a hook anymore. So one of the things that we really wanted to approach when we did this rework was, ‘How do we make the hook combo less frustrating and feel like it has enough counterplay?'” Kennedy said, adding that the double-firing Scrap Gun update makes Roadhog’s hook combo less punishing by giving players a window to react instead of immediately deleting them.

“The other issue with Roadhog is he’s a tank that doesn’t do anything to help my team get space, right?” he continued. “We’ve all played Overwatch games where my Roadhog is running away from the team, just doing his own thing. So we wanted to give him a tool that enables him to move forward. So with the Trash Compactor, you’re absorbing damage similar to D.Va’s [Defense] Matrix or Sigma’s [Kinetic] Grasp. It sort of becomes this window for allies to be able to move forward and work forward. So he now has a tank ability that is less under soaking damage and is more move forward with it.”

With these changes, Team 4 hopes to strengthen Roadhog’s identity within the tank role in Overwatch.

How the Roadhog rework address his hook combo

Lead hero producer Kenny Hudson and senior animator Kyle Disanjh shared their thoughts as well. They both went into Roadhog’s hook combo a bit more, with the latter also talking about Roadhog’s new Trash Compactor ability and how it replaces that satisfyingly feeling of landing Roadhog’s hook combo.

“Yeah, that’s definitely why we kept the the hook is kind of as it is,” Hudson said. “But it also has the slight tweak to it to where its whole distance is reduced. So it’ll draw players off farther ahead of you, which also plays into that [juke theme] so it’s not just an automatic like, “Let me figure out this combo and one-shot you.’ So [we] kind of have to do this balancing act of like, ‘[I want] it to be fun for the players who play Roadhog, but I also want it to fun for players who play against Roadhog.’ And I think we did that.”

“I think one thing to add on to that is that when we kind of pulled the hook, the kind of one-shot combo out, that was, as annoying as it was to be on the receiving end — for the Roadhog player, [it] was like really satisfying. ‘Yep, got my hook, got my kill. Sweet.’ And when we took that out, Roadhog was kind of missing that satisfying thing — whatever that might be,” Disanjh said.

He continued, “And so one of the things I really like about the Trash Compactor is it fires something back out after collecting the damage. So you have this new skill shot that is really satisfying to land. So we did lose something, but we didn’t want to just take it away and be like, ‘Ah, now it’s more balanced.’ We want to give him something, but the Trash Compactor is something you can kind of see coming. You might have added to the damage. You can react to it a bit more. It’s not just I turned a corner, I got hooked, it’s over. There’s a little bit more steps in the process. He’s still got that satisfying thing.”

Roadhog rework release date

According to Blizzard Entertainment, this Roadhog rework goes live in Overwatch Season 5. The season also features Doctrine as a new support hero and a Sombra rework that moves her into the support role.

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