The original Overwatch’s days are numbered. Last week, Blizzard revealed in a Reddit AMA that when Overwatch 2 launches on October 4th, it will overwrite Overwatch prime, successfully ending the six-year-old sport.
“When OW2 launches on October 4th it will be a replacement for the current live service,” wrote sport director Aaron Keller.
While the changeover will add a wealth of recent content material — new heroes, new maps, and extra — traditional Overwatch will stop to be, ending the 6v6 format and banishing the assault sport sort to the relative obscurity of the customized sport nook. The information got here as a little bit of a shock since, initially, Overwatch prime and Overwatch 2 had been alleged to coexist. During the Overwatch 2 panel at BlizzCon 2019, Aaron Keller, the sport’s present director, and Jeff Kaplan, the former sport director who left Blizzard over a yr in the past, described a situation by which gamers who upgraded to OW2 would nonetheless be capable of play with those that didn’t.
With gamers’ unlocked skins and different cosmetics transferring over, and with Overwatch 2 switching to a free-to-play mannequin, it appears then there was now not a purpose to maintain the two video games siloed. In a remark to The Verge, the Overwatch growth crew mentioned:
“Our goal is to not divide our player base and to make the transition to Overwatch 2 as seamless as possible. To that end, when Overwatch 2 launches as a free-to-play live service game on October 4th, it will replace the current Overwatch build. Content players have unlocked in Overwatch will automatically carry over to players in Overwatch 2.”
For gamers frightened about the Overwatch prime options being sundown with the arrival of Overwatch 2 (i.e., loot packing containers), the AMA revealed that any unopened loot packing containers will have their contents mechanically added to your stock and any unused cash (a forex you earn by way of loot packing containers) will additionally switch over. However, Blizzard intends to create a brand new forex with OW2, and the outdated cash received’t be capable of purchase all the things on supply.
There additionally received’t be a matchmaking ranking reset with the arrival of Overwatch 2. For followers hoping OW2 would deliver with it a mass aggressive ladder equalization, Scott Mercer, principal system designer, wrote that (*2*) Mercer did, nonetheless, reveal that OW2 will function a brand new decay system that will decrease the MMR of accounts that haven’t performed shortly to make sure matches in any respect ranges of the ladder are as equal as they are often.
While I’m excited for Overwatch 2, I’m just a little unhappy that each one the new comes at the expense of the outdated. I’m one among the exceedingly uncommon Assault followers, and relegating the sport mode to customized matches primarily signifies that I’ll now not play it, to not point out the many minute changes, like modifications to the UI and sound design, that will basically change how I play the sport.
Overwatch 2 launches on October 4th, so, Assault followers (sure, all 10 of us), it’s time for us to get in our final licks.
