Today marks the beginning of a new era for Blizzard Entertainment’s award-winning franchise: Overwatch 2 is live now and free to play worldwide with cross-platform play and progression for all players on Windows PC via Battle.net, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch consoles.
Setting the stage for years to come, Overwatch 2 will receive substantial seasonal updates, often including features such as new heroes, maps, game modes, cosmetics, and more released at a regular cadence.
Overwatch 2 launches today with an all-new item shop replacing the previous Loot Box system, a free Battle Pass for all players, and a purchasable Premium Battle Pass for each season. Both versions of the Battle Pass deliver a slew of features for players to enhance their Overwatch 2 experience and will add new heroes at periodic intervals after the first two seasons.
Premium Battle Pass:
The Premium Battle Pass, which provides instant access when new heroes are added in addition to other benefits, is priced at 1,000 Overwatch Coins per season (equivalent of $10 USD), unlocking in-game skins and other content. All players will have the ability to earn Overwatch Coins at no cost through in-game challenges each season, which can be saved up and used to purchase a Premium Battle Pass or other items available in the shop.
Season One:
Season One, now live, features cyber punk-themed items for both the free and paid Battle Pass tracks: skins, emotes, victory poses, highlight intros, player icons, weapon charms, sprays, voice lines, and more. The Season One Premium Battle Pass includes the first ever Mythic skin—a customizable skin tier new for Overwatch 2—for Genji.
Season 2:
Season Two will feature a new to-be-announced tank hero and new map. Seasons are planned to roll over every nine weeks, each complete with a unique theme and brand-new collectibles with which players can customize and personalize their Overwatch 2 experience.
PVE:
Development work is taking place on the much-anticipated Overwatch 2 PvE mode, which is expected to begin rolling out next year; release plans will be announced at a later date.
“Today is a massive new beginning for the Overwatch community, and we can’t wait for them to experience not only everything going live now, but everything coming in the months and years ahead. We know players are looking forward to a vibrant, thrilling, action-packed, polished experience, and we’re excited to go above and beyond their expectations with Overwatch 2—and also to welcome new heroes all around the world, across PC and console, into the bright and hopeful vision of the future that this game universe has always represented.”
Mike Ybarra, president of Blizzard Entertainment.
Source: Blizzard
This will make overwatch fans very happy.
Also, if you already had Overwatch installed, then Overwatch 2 is an update to that game. No need to go into the eshop to download it.
And it sucks. You need a post-paid phone number for your account to play the game (it’s a means to prevent cheating, loopholes, etc). So unfortunately, anyone who uses Cricket as their service provider (me) can’t play the game because all their phones are pre-paid numbers……. If only you could see my reaction when I jumped on to my PS4 after waiting hours for it to download, just to realize I can’t play it because of a phone number.. LMAO
Oh well, back to paladins
They said it is a free download. So, I really don’t know why they added the post-paid phone number in the game of what your saying.
What’s going on is that, just to even play the game, you need a phone number linked to your Battle.net account. Something about making it easier to catch hackers and cheaters and making it more difficult to come back after they’ve already been banned. I get that they want to crack down on people who do that crap, and I agree, but the phone number thing is a bit much. I’ve never heard of phone numbers being a barrier to entry for a video game before.
I showed a source explaining why the post-paid number matters, to Nikki below.
TLDR: It stops players from making multiple accounts and ruining matchmaking.
I had no intention of downloading or even playing Overwatch 2, but that’s ridiculous to stop players from playing and enjoying the Overwatch experience because of their phone plan. I doubt anyone would change plans just for one game.
I don’t understand how having a phone number associated with or linked to an account will prevent cheating.
“Overwatch 2 requires a post-paid phone number instead of a prepaid one to be able to use your Battle.net account as part of its SMS Protect initiative. This prevents ‘smurf accounts’ and restricts the spread of multiple accounts by individual users that might result in disruptive behavior. This means it can prevent matchmaking from being lopsided due to high-level players using separate accounts to join matches lower on the ladder, and discourages abusive online activity.”
source: https://attackofthefanboy.com/gaming/why-does-overwatch-2-require-a-post-paid-phone-number-explained/
Activision-Blizzard can’t help themselves with doing stupid shit, huh. First they do their own internal investigation on the abuse allegations & say no wrong doing (internal investigations are bullshit as it’s in the company’s best interest to look as good as possible in the public eye because reputation matters far more than money so of course you can’t trust ii’s), this shit, and now apparently, according to some article I see on Google, they’ve illegally withheld raises from unionizing workers according to a labor board. I hope Microsoft buying them fixes their stupidity but I don’t have high hopes. Alot of American companies have been doing stupid shit these past 7+ years.
Ya just can’t get enough of good ol’ American business practices. Muurica!!