In Overwatch 2 there is exactly one place to change your crosshair: open Options, go to the Controls tab, find the Reticle heading and expand Advanced. Inside that panel you adjust the shape, colour, opacity, outline and centre dot as separate items rather than as one preset. As of 8 September 2026, the reticle options whose names can be confirmed in official patch notes are Reticle Type, Reticle Dot, Color, Opacity, Outline Color, Outline Opacity, Outline Thickness and Dot Size, and this guide is a dictionary of those eight: what each one actually changes on screen, and nothing more. Mouse sensitivity, DPI and everything else that sits outside the reticle panel is covered separately in Overwatch sensitivity settings, so if your aim feels floaty rather than hard to see, start there instead. Menu wording and item placement can shift between updates, so treat the option names below as the anchor and confirm the exact location inside your own Options menu.
So what should you change first
Here is the short answer. A reticle has one job, which is to stay visible, and the order you touch things is effectively fixed. Pick the overall shape with Reticle Type, decide whether you want a centre dot at all with Dot Size, separate the crosshair from the background with Color and Opacity, then stop it from vanishing on bright maps with Outline Color, Outline Opacity and Outline Thickness. One thing worth stating plainly: Blizzard publishes no recommended values and no official best combination. The patch notes confirm which options exist and what each controls, and the numbers are yours to tune against your own monitor brightness and playstyle. If you must have a priority, players who mostly play hitscan feel the centre dot and Opacity the most, while players who throw projectiles or area abilities notice bigger changes from Reticle Type and the outline group. Resolution, frame rate and audio belong to the wider config, which is handled in Overwatch best settings; this page stays inside the reticle panel. Everything in the table and steps below was checked against official patch notes on 8 September 2026.
How to apply and verify the settings
- 1Expand Advanced under the Reticle heading — Open Options, go to the Controls tab, find the Reticle heading and click the Advanced expander. That is the path as checked on 8 September 2026; menu wording can shift with patches, so if the label reads differently, look for the expander beneath the reticle heading.
- 2Lock the shape with Reticle Type and Reticle Dot — Decide the big picture first. Choose a crosshair type, then choose the centre dot shape. If you tune colour and thickness before the shape is settled, every value you tuned goes out of balance the moment you swap shapes.
- 3Separate the body from the background with Color and Opacity — Set the body colour, then dial the opacity until the crosshair reads without covering what you are shooting at. Because body and outline opacity were split apart in the 5 December 2023 patch, a faded body with a solid outline is a valid combination.
- 4Build contrast with the three outline options — Work through Outline Color, Outline Opacity and Outline Thickness in that order. If the crosshair disappears against bright walls or snow, suspect these three before you go back and change the body colour again.
- 5Decide per mode or synced on multi mode heroes — The 5 December 2023 patch added extra reticle settings for specific heroes with multiple weapon modes. Choose here whether each mode gets its own reticle or whether the modes stay in sync with one another.
- 6Check preview, then practice range, then a real fight — Look at the crosshair preview inside the options menu first, take it into the practice range with a few different heroes, and only then judge it in a real match. The preview and a live map have completely different backgrounds, so you need both.
The eight advanced reticle options, plus per weapon mode settings — checked 8 September 2026
| Option (official name) | What changes on screen | Confirmed official source |
|---|---|---|
| Reticle Type | Sets the base shape of the crosshair. The 13 February 2024 patch added Square, Box, Line, Triwing and Falloff to the list. | Patch notes, 13 February 2024 |
| Reticle Dot | The shape of the dot drawn in the exact centre. The 13 February 2024 patch added Ring, Square, Triangle, Cross and Heart. | Patch notes, 13 February 2024 |
| Color | The colour of the crosshair body. The 13 February 2024 patch added Brown, Dark Red, Light Red, Light Purple, Gray and Teal. | Patch notes, 13 February 2024 |
| Opacity | How solid the crosshair body looks. Since the 5 December 2023 patch it is separated from outline opacity, so you can fade the body alone. | Patch notes, 5 December 2023 |
| Outline Opacity | How strong the black outline around the crosshair is. This is what decides whether the reticle survives a bright background. | PTR patch notes, August 2017, and patch notes, 5 December 2023 |
| Outline Color | Lets you colour the outline independently of the body. It was added as a new option in the 5 December 2023 patch. | Patch notes, 5 December 2023 |
| Outline Thickness | How thick the outline is drawn. A bug where it altered the reticle even at zero opacity was fixed in the 9 January 2024 patch. | Patch notes, 9 January 2024 |
| Dot Size | The size of the centre dot. To hide the dot entirely you set its size to zero rather than its opacity. | Patch notes, 5 December 2023 |
| Per weapon mode reticle settings | Specific heroes with multiple weapon modes can have each mode configured separately or kept in sync with the other. | Patch notes, 5 December 2023 |
Check these before you commit
- Did you actually expand Advanced under the Reticle heading? The individual sliders are hidden until you do.
- Are you trying to erase the centre dot with opacity? Since the 5 December 2023 patch the dot only disappears when its size is set to zero.
- Did you check body opacity and outline opacity separately? They are split, so lowering one leaves the other fully visible.
- On heroes with multiple weapon modes, have you chosen between separate reticles and synced modes?
- Have you looked at both the in-menu preview and the practice range before playing a ranked match with it?
- Do you know that colourblind team colours live in the Color Blind Options menu under the Video tab, not in the reticle options?
Changed your crosshair? Compare the fights before and after
Once the crosshair changes, the verdict has to come from real fights rather than the practice range, and that is exactly where in-game history runs out. According to Blizzard's replay announcement, replays and highlights are cleared when a new patch goes live (checked 8 September 2026; confirm that this is still how it behaves under the Replays tab of your player profile), so comparing option A against option B across several days means keeping footage outside the game. DOR is a free Windows desktop app that detects supported games automatically, records the full match, and cuts highlights such as kills into clips on its own, collecting them in the in-app library. It uses NVIDIA NVENC hardware encoding by default and records game audio and your microphone together, so the fight you took the day before the change and the one you took after sit next to each other instead of being lost to a patch. The browser clip editor opens with no install, trims down to the exact engagement you want, and a dor.gg link plays straight in a teammate's mobile browser. The Overwatch hub collects the other settings guides, and using the in-game replay tool itself is covered in how to watch Overwatch replays.
Sources and how to verify
Every option name and date in this guide comes from official Overwatch patch notes. The extra reticle types, centre dot shapes and colours were added in the 13 February 2024 patch. The separate outline colour, and the change that hides the dot through Dot Size rather than its opacity, are written in the 5 December 2023 patch. The outline thickness bug fix is in the 9 January 2024 patch, and the outline opacity option itself first appears in the August 2017 PTR patch notes. Open the Overwatch patch notes index to see whether anything reticle related has changed since, and read the original wording for the added options in the 13 February 2024 patch notes. As of 8 September 2026 the newest live patch notes are dated 20 August 2026 and contain no crosshair changes, which is not the same as saying nothing will change again. Option lists and menu labels can move in any update, so treat this page as a snapshot of the check date and confirm the current state in your own Options menu and the latest notes.
