Blizzcon is officially kicked off and some big Overwatch and Overwatch 2 news was just dropped by everyone’s favorite Overwatch celebrity, Jeff Kaplan. During his presentation on the Blizzcon stage, he finally put to rest some of the rumors that have been circling the internet for the past few weeks leading up to the event.
Before we get into what is announced, I want to take a minute and reflect on the new short that was dropped. Like all of the other shorts in the Overwatch lore, this one is just as good and just as emotional as any to date. It features Winston, Mei, and Tracer flying into Paris to help in an Omnic attack. During the attack, some familiar faces come in to help out the team with some new ones joining the fight as well. At the end of the animated short, Winston confirms Overwatch is back, and thus Overwatch 2 is born.
After the short, Jeff then goes on to confirm some rumors. This is what we now know (with more to come in the 1:30PST panel) about Overwatch 2.
- New Hero Missions will be introduced and will be similar to Diablo type missions
- All Heroes are getting updated/upgraded looks
- New Heroes are confirmed (Sojourn is the only one Jeff mentions during the talk)
- All Overwatch cosmetics and progress can/will move to Overwatch 2
- All Overwatch players will get to play the same maps as OW2 (including the news ones that are coming) as well as receive the new heroes.
- It is a “Shared Multiplayer Environment”
What I am still unsure of though is if Overwatch 2 is a separate game that current players will have to purchase. Jeff mentioned that current Overwatch players will be able to get the same stuff that will be in “Overwatch 2” but what isn’t clear is if Overwatch 2 is just the name of a new “edition” (i.e. Overwatch Legendary Edition, Standard Edition, etc) or if it is a seperate purchase with cross gameplay. I am sure more details on how the two games will work together will be talked about in the upcoming panel.
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