Overwatch 2 is coming but original Overwatch one players will be able to enjoy much of the same content for free, something that Blizzard apparently needed a little extra convincing of.
BlizzCon 2019 is a wrap and after numerous leaks and retailer oops, Overwatch 2 has officially been revealed. Even better is that all of the new content – new characters, maps, PvP – will be available for original Overwatch 1 players, all except for the Story Missions which will act as an expansion of sorts rather than a true sequel.
Game director Jeff Kaplan recently offered an inside look at the road paved with Legacy content, saying that Big Blizzard wasn’t initially on board with this move. “It’s very challenging because the industry has done things the same way for so long,” said Kaplan in an interview with Kotaku Australia. “And so it’s hard to get people, push them out of their comfort zone and say, hey I think we could do it a better way.”
But Kap and the team continued fighting because it was the “right thing to do” and honoring the community that helped build this title’s success was incredibly important to the team as a whole. “I try to tell them if we do what’s right by the players, they will be happy, we will have a better game, and we will end up in a better place in the long run.
“Rather than having this short-sighted thinking that’s usually driven by anxiety of ‘the only way to get players to play Overwatch 2 is to cut off all the Overwatch 1 players and starve them out and force them to come over’ and, you know, make that game just sort of die on the vine.”
Regarding what legacy players will be able to enjoy, Kaplan added “The fact that we were going to include all future heroes and all future maps, you know, moving forward on basically a boxed game was unheard of at the time. A lot of the people at the company had to take a big leap and go, wait, nobody else is doing this. And we challenged. We said, we think this is right: if I’m a player of the game this feels right and fair.”
We don’t have a release date yet, it looks like it may be a long time, but we do know that Overwatch 2 is officially on the way. You can catch up on all of the trailers and updates with our previous coverage right here.
