Technologies

Overwatch 2 Is Adding IP Crossover, Dating Sim to Season 3

The next season also introduces a suite of new skins and other changes to the game.

Overwatch 2 is getting ready to kick off its third competitive season, on Tuesday, Feb. 7. This’ll be the first season with no new hero, as we officially enter the «alternating between new hero and new map each season» phase of the game’s content roadmap. Instead, we get a new control map, Antarctic Peninsula, along with a new mythic skin in the battle pass.

We also get some unexpected changes, like an upcoming IP collaboration and Overwatch’s first foray into text-based dating sims. Here’s everything we know so far, including information from this morning’s blog post.

New map: Antarctic Peninsula

Control maps, aka king of the hill maps, are a community favorite in Overwatch, but we’ve gotten only two new ones since the game launched in 2016. The new Antarctic Peninsula map is poised to give players a different feel than what they get from the game’s other control maps, which are typically set in more metropolitan areas. The three submaps in Antarctic Peninsula will be an icebreaker ship, an underground drilling area, and Overwatch laboratories. Overwatch 2’s narrative lead has hinted that environments have some lore hidden away for sharp-eyed players to find. Also: penguins.

IP Crossover with One Punch Man

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all the season 3 news is the Fortnite-style IP collaboration with the anime One Punch Man. The only thing we know so far is that there will be a Saitama-themed skin for Doomfist, Overwatch’s own punching machine, but there may be other skins and cosmetics as well. The blog post says the team is looking for more potential collaborations in the future.

New mythic skin: Amaterasu Kiriko

In its first two seasons, Overwatch 2 offered a new type of hero skin called mythic skins, which come with hero customizations and different sound and visual effects. These skins are unlocked at level 80 of the battle pass. Season 1 brought us Cyberdemon Genji, while Season 2 added a Zeus-themed Junker Queen to the game. Season 3 continues the mythology trend by adding a mythic Amaterasu skin for support hero Kiriko. According to the season 3 blog post, the mythic skin is based on various deities in Japanese mythology and can be customized with moon, sea and storm themes. The shinto deity seems like a good fit for Overwatch’s newest support hero, whose healing abilities are already tied to a Japanese fox spirit.

Competitive and matchmaking changes

Matchmaking has been one of the community’s biggest complaints since Blizzard launched Overwatch 2, and the developers have planned changes for season 3 to address some of those concerns. In a developer blog about matchmaker goals, they said the matchmaker will start looking to balance teams within each role (tank, DPS and support) rather than just across the entire team. This should help avoid games where an entire role on one team outclasses the other, leading to a one-sided stomp.

The devs are also introducing a couple of adjacent changes to improve the competitive experience. Previously, players would be able to see their updated rank only after they’d notched seven wins or 20 losses. Starting in season 3, those numbers have been lowered to five wins or 15 losses, allowing players to see their updated rank more often. It means you’re less likely to rank up on each update (because you’ll have played fewer games on average), but it also means you no longer have to win 21 games to update your rank across all three roles — a welcome change. The devs said, too, that the user interface will also get an update in the mid-season patch, so you can always see how close you are to a competitive update (instead of only after a win or by doing math based on your current number of competitive wins for each role).

Your competitive rank will still decay at the start of season 3. But the developer blog said they’ll remove the seasonal rank resets that drop players roughly one full rank at the start of a season, starting in season 4.

Dating sim

Honestly, Overwatch dipping its toes in dating sims feels like an eventual inevitability, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. Your personal feelings about the heroes Genji and Mercy may make it more or less exciting, though, as those are the two heroes you have the option of pursuing, with the aid of a cupid-themed Hanzo. You’ll be able to unlock a Play of the Game highlight with certain endings, so be sure to check it out between Feb. 13 and Feb 28 at loverwatch.gg once the event is live.

Please, everyone play this and make it a huge success so we get more in the future. The game is filled with eligible candidates. The player base is thirsty. Baptiste already flirts with people in the game. I’m begging everyone to band together so we can flirt back.

Streamer mode

The game is introducing a streamer mode in an attempt to cut down on stream sniping, where players queue up at the same time as streamers so they can watch the stream while playing, in order to outmaneuver the streamers. New streamer mode options include hiding your and other players’ Battletags, hiding chat and replay codes, and delaying and hiding queue times to make it harder for people to join the same match as the streamer.

Accessibility improvements

A few changes are coming to aid in visibility across various parts of the game, including more subtitle options, mouse cursor size options, and custom colors for groups and alerts, which players will now be able to preview before applying.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Jan. 13, #1669

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Jan. 13, No. 1,669.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle is a little tricky, and it might make you hungry. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has no repeated letters.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has two vowels.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with G.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with O.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to a spicy Cajun stew popular in New Orleans.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is GUMBO.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Jan. 12, No. 1,668 was TRIAL.

Recent Wordle answers

Jan. 8, No. 1,664: BLAST

Jan. 9, No. 1,665: EIGHT

Jan. 10, No. 1,666: MANIC

Jan. 11, No. 1,667: QUARK

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

Don’t be afraid to use our tip sheet ranking all the letters in the alphabet by frequency of uses. In short, you want starter words that lean heavy on E, A and R, and don’t contain Z, J and Q.

Some solid starter words to try:

ADIEU

TRAIN

STARE

NOISE

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Jan. 13 #681

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Jan. 13, No. 681.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

It took me a while to figure out the theme for today’s NYT Strands puzzle, but once I did, I thought it was a fun one. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: You need to chill

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Brrrr!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GONE, ABLE, TABLE, FOOD, TEEN, LEAF, GOOF, GOOD, SAFE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

PIZZA, SHERBET, POPSICLES, WAFFLES, VEGETABLES

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is FROZENFOOD. To find it, start with the F that is five letters down on the far-right row, and wind backward.

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Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest.

#1: Dated slang. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook. Again, it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK.

Technologies

Anker’s Brand New Soundcore Aerofit Pro 2 Earbuds Are Barely a Week Old and They’re Already $30 Off

The AeroFit line has been one of our go-tos, and the brand-new Pro model is already easier to recommend thanks to a solid deal.

If you’re looking for earbuds that can keep up with your workouts, commutes and everything in between, the Anker AeroFit Pro 2 earbuds are worth a look. This brand-new model just launched last week, combining comfort, open-ear listening and active noise cancellation into one versatile package.

We expect big things from this new model — after all, the AeroFit 2 are one of our favorite earbuds, so this new model is bound to impress. Despite being so new, the AeroFit 2 Pro are already discounted to $150, down $30 from the launch price of $180. You’ll need to use promo code WSTDA3875US when you shop at Anker, giving you a head start on a top-tier open-ear experience.

What’s unique about the AeroFit Pro 2 is that the buds can switch between two forms with a simple adjustment of the ear hooks. That means you get both an open-ear design for breathable comfort and active noise cancellation for focused listening. Those same skin-friendly liquid silicone ear hooks ensure a secure fit that should stay comfortable all day.

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Sound promises to be equally impressive. The earbuds offer studio-grade 11.8mm composite drivers, LDAC technology and dynamic head tracking deliver immersive, theatre-like audio. Four mics with AI call-boosting make your voice come through crystal-clear, even in noisy environments.

If you want to compare models, take a look at our roundup of the best open earbuds for 2026, and the best headphone deals for more savings.

HEADPHONE DEALS OF THE WEEK

Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones (Black):

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Beats Studio Pro Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones (Black):

$170 (save $181)
Sony WH-1000XM6 Wireless Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Headphones:

$398 (save $62)
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$179 (save $170)
Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless ANC Over-Ear Headphones (Black):

$200 (save $250)

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Why this deal matters

You have the chance to get a brand-new model from a proven line of favorites at a solid discount. With versatile forms, premium sound and top-notch microphones, the AeroFits Pro 2 is a flexible, high-quality option for any listener.