Image: Blizzard Entertainment
It’ll take around 100 matches for new players to unlock Overwatch 2’s complete hero roster.
Blizzard Entertainment has announced a series of changes coming in Overwatch 2 to welcome new players to the game, and that includes locked heroes and game modes for beginners. Anyone who hasn’t played the original Overwatch will start with only a limited pool of heroes and game modes in the sequel, and they’ll have to play, “approximately 100 matches,” to unlock everything else.
Overwatch 2 also has a new launch trailer:
Blizzard outlined these changes in a new blog post, saying that first-time players should be able to unlock all game modes and in-game chat relatively quickly, but it’ll take 50 Quick Play matches to unlock Competitive Mode and around 100 matches to unlock all playable heroes. That might not include new Support hero Kiriko however, since she's locked to Level 55 of the Season 1 Battle Pass.
The developer explained that these changes were made due to, “consistent feedback from new players feeling overwhelmed by numerous game modes and heroes.” That bit actually makes a lot of sense, considering that new players have no way of knowing which of the 35 playable heroes are a good fit for them without resorting to Google beforehand. This works to onboard new players and discourage smurf accounts from dominating the game.
100 matches is a bit much though, and it’s easy to see why new players might get annoyed if a hero they’ve had their eye on playing is kept out of reach for hours on end. Blizzard also mentioned that most of these first-time player restrictions are lifted when playing in a group, to allow players to squad up with their friends for whatever game modes they’d like. That doesn’t include Competitive Mode, however - you’ll still need to play 50 Quick Play matches to get into the swing of things first.
Blizzard is also making some moves to combat ‘disruptive players’ in Overwatch 2. When the sequel launches, all players will need to have a phone number attached to their Battle.net account thanks to a feature called SMS Protect, now put into place to prevent cheating. It also stops suspended or banned players from returning to the game easily. The game is also going to record and transcribe all in-game voice chat, and then issue bans using ‘chat review tools’, which are meant to detect toxic player behaviour.
Endorsements are also getting slimmed down to one category and players with high endorsement levels will be awarded Battle Pass XP. Player levels, Portrait Borders and Competitive skill tiers are all going away as well - replaced by customisable name cards and titles. If you worked hard in the original game to get those high-level shiny Portrait Borders, treasure them before they go extinct.
Overwatch 2 launches on October 4 next week, as a free-to-play title.
