Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Overwatch 2's new Diablo 4 skins are locked behind an expensive $40 bundle, and players are having none of it.
Blizzard Entertainment kicked off Overwatch 2 Season 7: Rise of Darkness this week, but not everyone’s happy about it. After the entire season was marketed based on its crossover with the action-RPG Diablo 4 - also developed by Blizzard - players discovered that the two available crossover skins are part of an expensive $40 bundle.
Season 7 launched with two Diablo 4 skins: Lilith Moira and Inarius Pharah, both of which are really high-quality skins but sadly cost a bomb to attain. If you want to play as the Mother of Sanctuary or her rival rogue angel, you’ll have to fork out $40 Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle which also includes 20 Battle Pass tier skips, an Epic Bastion skin, some coins and access to the Battle Pass itself. Regardless of the Battle Pass’ content, $40 is really pushing it for two crossover skins and digital currency, especially when neither skin is available to purchase separately.
This seems to be intentional on Blizzard’s part, seeing as the last season ‘Invasion’ featured a similar Ultimate Battle Pass bundle for the same price, but with added access to three PvE story campaign missions. Blizzard likely wants to keep a $40 bundle on sale this season, but without new PvE missions to sell, can only hope to replace them with two measly albeit enticing skins.
This was already enough to earn the ire of players who got sold on this Halloween-themed season based on its Diablo connections, but Season 7 also has one of the weakest Battle Pass Mythic skins yet - an Onryo skin for Hanzo with the fewest amount of customisation options for a Mythic skin yet. The low-effort nature of this Mythic, along with the high price of the $40 bundle, has led to Season 7 having a rough start, to say the least.
Players on the Overwatch subreddit have revolted against what they perceive to be rather greedy monetisation. A post with 18,500 upvotes reads, “$53.99? Go f**k yourself Blizzard.” One user comments, “my jaw literally dropped seeing the price wtf,” while another argues that, “You may as well buy Diablo at this point…” Many have pointed out that multiple games are on sale right now for $40 or far less, giving the buyer much more bang for their buck than a hollow bundle of digital cosmetics.
This season is off to a rough start for a game that is already Steam’s lowest-rated game due to its harsh monetisation. Many players would have seen Blizzard advertise the season based on its Diablo skins and unless they paid attention to blog posts and online commentary, would not have known that these skins cost $40 to attain. Fortunately, this season’s new map Samoa and Diablo-inspired PvE mode remain free-to-play.