Overwatch 2 is going free-to-play. Here’s why

Blizzard plans for seasons to last nine weeks, with three or four new heroes added per year. If you play games like Apex Legends or Valorant, this release cadence should be familiar to you. Keller and Spector argue that other successful free-to-play games are not what caused Blizzard to make this shift. Instead, they say factors such as a lowering of the entry barrier for interested players and a reluctance to hold onto finished content played a role in Overwatch 2 it goes free to play.

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“We don’t want to develop things and try to consolidate them into a big box release; we’d rather just release the content when it’s ready and do it as quickly as possible,” says Keller. “As we continued to work on some of the more innovative gameplay for the PvE side Overwatch 2, this meant that it would take longer for any of our PvP features to become public. We want to release stuff as often as we can, but it took us too long to get it in front of our players.”

Original Overwatch it faltered because it stopped getting significant content updates in 2020 so Blizzard could focus on Overwatch 2. With the release of the sequel as a free-to-play game this year, that long wait ends — and players won’t have to worry about it happening again for a long time. The developers also emphasized this Overwatch 2 It would feel more like a sequel than an update when it launches, thanks to new content and a rework into 5v5 matches. Spector explains that many systems were introduced at the same time, such as cross-play, cross-progression and the seasonal model, so it made sense to lower the barriers to entry and launch free-to-play this year.

“We are committed to publishing content frequently and consistently.”

“There’s a bunch of these different systems coming together to make us feel like this is the right time for free-to-play and remove all the barriers to entry for players and make it as easy as possible to get in, get in, love the game and play with their friends,” says Spector. “It was really more about growing that value of the game and the social aspects of it, and a little less about there being a ton of content here, and it could have been a $60 box. We really didn’t think about it that way.”

However, Keller was also candid about the fact that monetization Overwatch 2 as a free-to-play title will also ensure that developers have the funding and support to continue creating new content for the foreseeable future. With battle passes, mythic skins and an in-game store confirmed, Blizzard will undoubtedly cash in Overwatch 2 like a free-to-play cosmetic game.

“Honestly, we’re committed to releasing content frequently and consistently, and the easiest way to fund that is with a free-to-play style game,” says Keller. “It allows us to keep building new things for the game.”

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Keeping that vision alive

“We’re restructuring parts of the team so we can work on multiple heroes and multiple maps at the same time…”

A busy year of development followed to ensure that the same was true Overwatch 2. “We made a big turnaround, and it was a very fast year where we had to do a lot of things to turn this huge ship that was going in one direction in another direction to fulfill one of our core values ​​for the game, which is to be able to continuously updates,” says Keller.

Keller’s comment regarding the significant shift in the past year raises questions about the developer’s health for making this big shift during a very turbulent time for Blizzard. Keller says Blizzard has taken measures to grow the team so it can work on multiple things at once without stretching itself too thin.

“We’re three times bigger than when we launched the original,” says Keller. “We’re restructuring parts of the team so we can work on more heroes and more maps at the same time, while still looking at bigger features coming to the service later, like PvE.”

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While Overwatch 2 while the free-to-play announcement may have come as a shock to the community, Keller and Spector clarified that it was something they had given a lot of thought to and was not a rash decision. Of course, releasing it as a free-to-play early access game means they can end the series’ content drought and garner as many new players as possible. Still, Spector believes in Blizzard Overwatch 2 the free-to-play fix was “thoughtful” and not done just to get something out the door.

“You have to have a thoughtful strategy for how you update the game and how you bring in new content,” says Spector. “It was very important to us that it’s not just ‘Hey, Overwatch 2 is free to play, but rather “Overwatch 2 is free to play and is one part of the overall vision of a live service with seasonal content updates.’”

Overwatch 2 will launch on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on October 4.

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