Overwatch 2 Launches October 4 - Free to Play and New Hero: Junker Queen

[uuuhname]

Kinda over Overwatch PvP. I had my fun in quickmatch back when the game launched, but the moment ranked play dropped I immediately lost all interest.

I'm more interested in the PvE component that was announced along with OW2, but not sure if they've expanded on what it'll entail since first announcing it.

same boat. have they really expanded on what the PVE will be at all?

edit: if the reveal event isn't 90% about the PVE then this game is DOA.

[Zarathos]

Honestly any hype I had for this game died when Jeff Kaplan left

A M E N ! I'm scared of the microtransactions that will come with it....

[Lollis]

A M E N ! I'm scared of the microtransactions that will come with it....

Since TF2 is apparently abandoned (and I haven't played it since it went F2P) maybe they are hoping to take that community from valve and sell hats to them.

[saixilein]

Since TF2 is apparently abandoned (and I haven't played it since it went F2P) maybe they are hoping to take that community from valve and sell hats to them.

im sure you need to buy new heros now. or need a ton a new ingame currency, that can be grinded or bought with money.

[Chilela]

Well, guess I can't clown on it being a $60 update now. Guessing microtransactions will be more aggressive in exchange, however.

[Nerdkartoffl]

It blows my mind that in 2years of development, they only made a game mode, 2 heroes and a visual upgrade, that is so tiny, most people dont even see it. (I dont could the reworks. Thats really not noteworthy IMHO)

The only real new thing was the PvE and this is pushed back till a later date, because 2 years are not enough for a multi million company.
Meanwhile GGG and some indie devs push out content for games with double the quality blizzard is bringing.

Yeah... This seems logical... In some parallel dimension.


Edit: rad some comments and now i get i to some degree. Still pretty sad to see so much incompetence in one project. If i look at the other games from blizzard, it seems they really replaced every good and thinking worker with an hardcore idiots.

[AngerFork]

Overall, an interesting choice to do OW2 in the way they have. I find myself very mixed on the whole thing. As someone who got OW a while back, I'm not sure that 2 skins, an icon, & a mystery surprise feels right for trading in a paid game where things were already unlocked for an F2P game that may or may not have the same unlocks...though this likely may lead to more content being available, so that may breathe life into the game. I find myself wondering if debates over F2P were part of what led into Kaplan leaving.

Art-wise, some heroes look amazing in this (e.g. Doomfist) whereas some hero designs are IMO not as strong as they were before (e.g. D-Va).

[Liftbrul]

Going F2P seems like the only way to salvage this. I might even give it a look even though I haven't played OW in years.

[Ielenia]

Overall, an interesting choice to do OW2 in the way they have. I find myself very mixed on the whole thing. As someone who got OW a while back, I'm not sure that 2 skins, an icon, & a mystery surprise feels right for trading in a paid game where things were already unlocked for an F2P game that may or may not have the same unlocks...though this likely may lead to more content being available, so that may breathe life into the game. I find myself wondering if debates over F2P were part of what led into Kaplan leaving.

Art-wise, some heroes look amazing in this (e.g. Doomfist) whereas some hero designs are IMO not as strong as they were before (e.g. D-Va).

They announced, way back when they revealed Overwatch 2 for the very first time, that all your current unlocks in Overwatch 1 (sprays, skins, voice lines, etc) will transfer over to Overwatch 2.

Also, personally, I love D.Va's new look. But mostly because I like the ponytail look on characters.

[Kallisto]

F2P is fine but once again why does it look the same? Not memeing, just really want to know. It being free isnt a reason.

Because there's a campaign mode being made.

Also in the year building up to the announcement t of OW2 the things people wanted in the sequel was what was announced at the Ow 2 reveal event.

[Woggmer]

Overall, an interesting choice to do OW2 in the way they have. I find myself very mixed on the whole thing. As someone who got OW a while back, I'm not sure that 2 skins, an icon, & a mystery surprise feels right for trading in a paid game where things were already unlocked for an F2P game that may or may not have the same unlocks...though this likely may lead to more content being available, so that may breathe life into the game. I find myself wondering if debates over F2P were part of what led into Kaplan leaving.

Art-wise, some heroes look amazing in this (e.g. Doomfist) whereas some hero designs are IMO not as strong as they were before (e.g. D-Va).

It's actually unknown what really made Jeff leave the company. Some say it was because they wanted to change the model to something like Call of Duty's model... Others may say it was because he got sick of the employee harassment and left to make it harder on Activision for letting them let it slide. And another source from a Korean Overwatch streamer with connections inside Blizz say that if he stayed with the game, then the PvP aspect would've been kept delayed until PvE was finished.

He used to be on the WoW team up until a few months before Ulduar came out, where he left the team due to feeling burnout on working for the same game. Though as for Overwatch, that's kind of it's own separate discussion and will probably remain a mystery unless he tells us what happened.

[Therougetitan]

that's great, but we already have a thread on this

I can't get over the audacity to tell a mod this on a news post.

[lordjust]

F2P is fine but once again why does it look the same? Not memeing, just really want to know. It being free isnt a reason.

Because the initial plan was to not kill OW1. All new PVP modes, heros and maps would get released in OW1 and OW2 and there was supposed to be cross-play between OW1 and OW2. You want to play OW PVP or competitive, buy OW1 and you're fine. You want to play the cooperative PVE part, want the new graphics engine or some of the new skins? Buy OW2.

Because of this cross-game/cross-generation they planned they couldn't do big, drastic changes. With OW2 now going F2P (at least the PVP part) we have to wait and see if and how their plans have changed. Is cross-play between OW1 and OW2 still a thing or does the change to F2P mean that the community has to transition over to OW2?

[Magical Mudcrab]

Think we can stop memeing about OW2 being too similar to OW1 since it's gonna be free to play.

No, because OW 1 received basically no updates for 2 years because of OW2 development, killing the game for many people.

[Delekii]

So... Diablo Immortal-style transactions inc?

[Kumorii]

At least they got my interest back with F2P.

I assume that means heroes will be currency based, but I guess that means they must create loads more heroes. Which I don't know if it's good or bad until we see how it's handled.

- - - Updated - - -

So... Diablo Immortal-style transactions inc?

Probably more like heroes of the storm.

[Romanthony]

It will suffer the same fate as OW did, it will be popular for awhile, before going stale very fast. Focousing sololyon pvp killed the game, really and making pve events yearly things. We need solo/ Coop campaings not just pvp

[Soulwind]

At least they got my interest back with F2P.

I assume that means heroes will be currency based, but I guess that means they must create loads more heroes. Which I don't know if it's good or bad until we see how it's handled.

They'll probably have to reuse/readapt certain weapons and abilities if they want to introduce many more heroes (so Roadhog may not be the only one with a hook, but he may be the only one with a hook and a shotgun combo). That may make some heroes lose a bit of identity and charm, but it may also add variety and some degree of customization. It'll be less important to identify which heroes the other team has and hard counter them if the toolkits are more widely spread.

I agree it's not necessarily a good or a bad thing, but the game could end up being very different.

[Kathranis]

Because the initial plan was to not kill OW1. All new PVP modes, heros and maps would get released in OW1 and OW2 and there was supposed to be cross-play between OW1 and OW2. You want to play OW PVP or competitive, buy OW1 and you're fine. You want to play the cooperative PVE part, want the new graphics engine or some of the new skins? Buy OW2.

Because of this cross-game/cross-generation they planned they couldn't do big, drastic changes. With OW2 now going F2P (at least the PVP part) we have to wait and see if and how their plans have changed. Is cross-play between OW1 and OW2 still a thing or does the change to F2P mean that the community has to transition over to OW2?

Well, according to (unverified) leaks, Chacko Sonny and Jeff Kaplan's plan was absolutely to "kill OW1," which they didn't consider a live service game. They wanted the team to treat it as a finished project and put all of their effort into completing OW2. They left amid growing pressure from ABK to deliver a finished product, as they kept having to delay it due to various issues including the pandemic.

Jeff and Sonny were then replaced with Walter Kong (who created the current Fortnite live service development pipeline for Epic Games) and Aaron Keller, who wanted to treat Overwatch as a live service game with a steady stream of updates. One of the first decisions they made after being promoted was to decouple Overwatch 2 PvE and PvP so that they could start getting new content into the hands of current OW1 players as quickly as possible.

And OW2 PvP is just an update for OW1. We literally just had a beta test where it hooked into the OW1 client and carried over all your account details, stats, and unlocks. It going to F2P doesn't really change anything. They're just replacing the $15 standard edition of OW1 with a F2P OW2 download.

Obviously there are plans for a battle pass of some sort, and the PvE components will probably become a paid DLC pack of some sort.

[Mamut]

So... Diablo Immortal-style transactions inc?

Why? So far 0 PC games from Blizzard had this transaction style. Why OW2 would be different?