“We are transitioning from the Overwatch League and evolving competitive Overwatch in a new direction,” said an Activision Blizzard spokesperson in a statement. “We are grateful to everyone who made OWL possible and remain focused on building our vision of a revitalized esports program. We are excited to share details with you all in the near future.”

The Overwatch League has seemingly faced quite a few problems since its original launch back in 2017, especially once lockdown restrictions came about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Back in 2020, Blizzard had to cancel quite a few of its Overwatch League live events because of the lockdowns at the time.

Overwatch 2 has been going quite strong, despite a few criticisms here and there by the player base. More recently, Blizzard unveiled a new Hero, Mauga, slated for release on December 5. The studio also announced that the game will be getting a new PvP mode, as well as two new Heroes and a map in 2024.

It’s in late April where things get real spicy. A closed beta for PvP will go live with 5v5 matches, four maps new to the series – Circuit Royal, Midtown, New Queen Street and Colosseo – and Push Mode. Sojourn is being added as a new hero along with reworks for Sombra, Bastion, Orisa and Doomfist. There’s also a new Ping System for players to try out.

Head here to opt-in for a chance to join the beta via Battle.net. Access will be granted to players in phases and more will be added in further beta phases. Public beta testing is also coming this year with new features, maps and other new heroes. Keller also notes that the team will communicate more in the coming months so stay tuned for more details.

Though Dorado and Havana are maps from Overwatch 1, the former takes place during the day while the latter is set at night. These give a different vibe of sorts but fundamentally, the maps are the same. In terms of mechanics, it’s interesting to note the rate of Ultimate charge and how much slower it is compared to the first game. This makes it much harder to make a comeback if full held on the first point of defense.

The 2022 season of Overwatch League will be played on an early build of Overwatch 2 but when the full game, which includes a campaign, will release is unknown. It’s currently in development for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Bastion no longer has self-heal and doesn’t transform into a tank with his Ultimate. His new Ultimate is essentially an artillery strike with players able to mark positions on an overhead map. When transforming into Sentry mode, Bastion can now move on treads and attack, though his movement speed is reduced by 50 percent. His Recon mode also has slower firing but is more accurate over longer range.

As for Sombra, her Hack now has two parts – the first disables abilities for a second while the second will reveal enemies to teammates for eight seconds. More importantly, enemies that have been hacked now take more damage from her primary fire. Her Ultimate, EMP, has also been changed to deal damage with hacked foes taking additional damage from attacks. Finally, she can hack opponents from stealth though she will be briefly revealed while doing so.

Overwatch 2 is currently in development for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. An early build will be used for Overwatch League’s 2022 season but a commercial release date has not been announced.

There will also be an Exhibition Match and according to OWL VP Jon Spector, there will be pro players taking part. These will include teams that were knocked out of the playoffs so that “this doesn’t become a distraction to their competition.” So if you’ve ever wanted to see how the new rules work at the highest level, it might be worth tuning in.

The next season of Overwatch League will start in April 2022 and is confirmed to be running on an early build of Overwatch 2. When it will become available for the general public, either with or without the new PvE and story content, remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/1438552138414755845

Just to address one of the questions I’ve seen pop up – the pro player exhibition will feature players in Hawaii for our playoffs. We’re setting up for those teams to playtest after they’re knocked out of playoffs (so this doesn’t become a distraction to their competition).

— Jon Spector (@Spex_J) September 16, 2021

Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Overwatch 2 will be available to the general public. It’s likely just the PvP component of the sequel – which offers 5v5 matches with only one Tank – that the next OWL season will use. This isn’t too different from the closed beta days of Overwatch which was used for competitive esports tournaments before its official release.

But if nothing else, it means that development on Overwatch 2 is proceeding along and a full release for all players could happen next year after all. The sequel is currently in development for Xbox One, PS4, PC and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

I've seen a lot of speculation regarding a 2022 start date for OWL. We can confirm that our plan is to begin next season in April 2022. We will share more details about 2022 roster construction timelines soon and more info generally on our 2022 season as we get closer to April.

— Jon Spector (@Spex_J) September 3, 2021

I can confirm, via an Overwatch League spokesperson, that the 2022 season will "begin on an early build of Overwatch 2." Wow.

— Liz Richardson (@mizliz_) September 3, 2021

Oh yeah also this https://t.co/9SdBXXSyzz

— Jon Spector (@Spex_J) September 3, 2021

However, that may have changed recently. In a report that goes behind the scenes of the Overwatch League, Dexerto spoke to an internal Activision-Blizzard source who said, “We’re more than aware we need to get it out. So the word is the dev team has been told to lock in the features the game has, get it fixed and get it shipped. We’re looking to get it out before the Summer of 2022.”

A franchise management member offered a slightly different target for release. “We’ve all been told that the aim is Q2 of next year. The timing of the release will factor in the league schedule because obviously they don’t want to switch game versions in the middle of a season.” Obviously this makes the most sense but whether the developer can reach this target or not remains to be seen.

One possibility is that Overwatch 2 launches with many of its PvP changes and features along with a sizable story campaign, and more content is added post-launch. Till now, the developer has confirmed that matches will be 5v5 with only one Tank role and that Assault is going away. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

In the recent string of cancellations due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, it’s now the Overwatch League which has cancelled its live events. Homestands in China and South Korea were already cancelled beforehand. However, it’s now confirmed that all live events for March and April have been cancelled.

In a recent statement, Activision Blizzard said, “The health and safety of employees, fans, players, teams, and partners is paramount to Activision Blizzard Esports. We are continuing to closely monitor COVID-19 (coronavirus), city-level recommendations and mandates, and all guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” Activision Blizzard esports CEO Pete Vlastelica noted on Twitter that matches will still be played and broadcast throughout both months.

Vlastelica also said that the exact schedule for matches will be shared “soon” so expect certain matches to be shuffled around. Events that were recently postponed due to COVID-19 include GDC 2020 and BitSummit 2020. Even the vaunted E3 2020 has been cancelled with the ESA looking to hold an online event of sorts.

Publishers like Microsoft are working around the cancellations, planning livestreams for GDC 2020 content next week and an Xbox digital event to compensate for E3. Ubisoft is also exploring options for a “digital experience” of sorts. In the meantime, Nintendo is reported to be hosting a Nindies Showcase next week followed by a Nintendo Direct by March end to outline the company’s 2020 line-up.

To be clear, we WILL be playing matches in March and April. We cancelled the events, not the matches (though we will have to move a few things around in the schedule to make this work). https://t.co/guxoTWLhMk

— Pete Vlastelica (@PeteVlastelica) March 11, 2020

And yes, the matches will be broadcast. https://t.co/ovM50K1TLN

— Pete Vlastelica (@PeteVlastelica) March 11, 2020

YouTube, yes. Not quite ready to share the exact schedule but will soon.

— Pete Vlastelica (@PeteVlastelica) March 11, 2020

Following the outbreak of the coronavirus in China, Blizzard Entertainment has the cancellation of scheduled Overwatch League matches in the region. Matches were set to take place in February and March with Shanghai being the first homestand. In a statement on Twitter, Blizzard has stated that this was done to “protect the health and safety of our players”.

“We have decided to cancel our February and March matches in China in order to protect the health and safety of our players, fans, and staff. We hope fans have a safe and happy Lunar New Year, and we remain incredibly excited to play Overwatch League matches in China later this season. We’ll share more information about when and where the matches will take place at a later date.”

The cancellation comes in the wake of several teams like Guangzhou Charge and Shanghai Dragons shifting their players and employees to South Korea. The latter was to host matches at its homestand from February 15th to 18th prior to the cancellation. For now, we’ll have to wait for more information on the scheduled matches.

The Overwatch League 2020 Season begins on February 8th at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Hosted by New York Excelsior, it will see teams like the Toronto Defiant, Paris Eternal, New York Excelsior, Boston Uprising and London Spitfire competing. A special developer update relating is also expected sometime in the coming days (with a new patch currently live on all platforms) so stay tuned.

pic.twitter.com/nLEPHrJZXS

— Overwatch Esports (@OW_Esports) January 30, 2020

It’s amazing how much of that optimistic, innocent charm has worn off over time.

"And yet, if you talk to long-time players, the same complaints seem to crop up as much now as they did a year ago. Balance patches are considered poorly handled."

Fast forward to 2018. Overwatch is more than just a pretty cinematic trailer or closed beta test. It’s played by tens of million of people. The game forms the foundation of a successful e-Sports league, one that’s relatively young but viewed by a myriad of people on Twitch, Disney, ESPN, YouTube, and so on. In fact, that same league has expanded to include eight new teams, each buying in for millions of dollars. It’s not enough to say that Overwatch has changed – Blizzard’s handling of it has also undergone changes in line with the game’s growth.

And yet, if you talk to long-time players, the same complaints seem to crop up as much now as they did a year ago. Balance patches are considered poorly handled. Players point to the dominance of heroes like Mercy, Sombra, Hanzo, Brigitte and many more as prime examples of how some balance passes overwhelmingly render a hero “meta” as soon as they go live. Certain metas have also become the bane of players’ existence with triple-support and triple-tank being the most recent.

When director Jeff Kaplan and his team do implement changes, they’re met with some range of skepticism at to the overall goal. Look no further than the recent Public Test Realm patch which nerfs armour (crucial to all tanks), D.Va (the bane of hitscan players) and Brigitte (a steady armour supplier) while simultaneously buffing Reaper to have more life sustain. It’s not all that different from when Tracer’s Pulse Bomb was nerfed at the same time Brigitte was first introduced, the latter serving as a hard counter for the former.

"However, there’s still no denying that in terms of monetization, Overwatch is a bit of an anomaly."

This isn’t even taking into account all the problem with Competitive Play. Overwatch League may represent the game’s pinnacle form in terms of team play, strategy and meta comps but the actual ranked ladder mode is a mess. Leavers, throwers, one-tricks, lack of role-queue, skewed matchmaking, abusive players, private profiles – you name it and Competitive Play has developed a reputation for the same. Toxicity in online games is nothing new but when the key gateway to how the game should be played at the highest level is plagued with these issues for such a long period of time, something’s gotta give.

It’s not like Overwatch is dying or anything. Sure, Blizzard hasn’t really delivered much in the way of new content for its seasonal events (aside from new cosmetics in loot boxes). But it’s still offered new heroes and maps, completely free of charge. With loot boxes seemingly being clamped down on throughout the industry, where does Overwatch go from here in terms of monetization? Blizzard itself is looking at costing costs, as recent reports by Kotaku’s Jason Schreier have indicated, and it may not be long before an Overwatch mobile game releases to rake in some more cash. Then there’s the Overwatch League skins which require direct purchasing for league skins.

However, there’s still no denying that in terms of monetization, Overwatch is a bit of an anomaly. One could look at its loot box system and criticize it as a sham or borderline gambling. Compared to games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, published by Blizzard’s partner Activision, Overwatch still seems fairly tame. While Treyarch does quite a bit to update Black Ops 4, making its latest Specialist free, adding map new sections to Blackout and offering numerous fixes, weapon balance changes and so on, it’s interesting to look at the content created and the amount of monetization avenues present in the game. There’s the base game price, Call of Duty Points (purchasable with real money), Special Orders (purchasable with COD Points), Tier Skips (though free skips are offered on a daily basis) and a Season Pass with additional content.

"Where does it go from here? How can it grow further, at least from an investor’s point of view?"

In comparison, Overwatch has two sources of on-going monetization: Loot boxes and League skins. You may see the odd Pink Mercy skin which can be purchased directly with real money but those proceeds went towards cancer research.

The point of all this is that Overwatch, judging by the current state of several core features, the growing demands of its e-Sports league and the limited number of monetization sources, seems to be in somewhat of a stagnant position. Where does it go from here? How can it grow further, at least from an investor’s point of view?

As Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter predicted in a recent GamesIndustry.biz feature, free to play might be the answer. This comes in the wake of the Overwatch League expanding to include eight new teams for a total of 20 in Season 2. Pachter feels that team owners “have been assured by Blizzard that it will expand the audience for Overwatch. The most expedient way to do this is to make the core game free-to-play in order to attract tens of millions of new users, who ostensibly will convert to OWL viewers.”

Pachter expects this change to go live in mid-June. Those who put down money for the game are likely to be consoled with exclusive skins and other cosmetics, as per the analyst. Now, Pachter does get two key details wrong in his prediction – the current number of OWL teams and the anniversary date of the original game which was in May 2016, not mid-June. There’s also no guarantee that this happens – in a separate prediction, Pachter talks about The Elder Scrolls 6 launching in 2019 while simultaneously pointing out that he predicted a release in 2016 and 2017.

"So from an investor point of view, why not make the game free-to-play? It would inject a ton of new blood into the experience."

Still, the reasoning behind Overwatch going free to play seems sound. If not in the coming months, then at some point in the long-term.

Think about it – the development team at Blizzard is currently working on new maps, new heroes, new features (like a match viewer within the game client), balance patches, bug fixes, new modes, seasonal events (even if 2018’s events supplied largely the same content we’ve seen before), map changes and adjustments, hero reworks, cinematics, comics, new cosmetics, new voicelines, new Overwatch League cosmetics and much, much more. It’s also doing a lot behind the scenes, managing the production of Overwatch League and ensuring the game’s continued smooth running. When servers face issues, Blizzard is very quick to answer. Game-breaking bugs are hit or miss but some of the worst offending bugs – like the recent spawn issues in Blizzard World – were addressed very quickly.

So from an investor point of view, why not make the game free-to-play? It would inject a ton of new blood into the experience. The promise of rewards for veteran players would entice them to come back as well. The real obstacle is monetization. Yes, this provides a pretty good incentive to remove loot boxes and their random RNG in favour of direct purchases. It also probably incentivizes the current hot trend of Battle Passes, allowing players to pay some money each season and earn a range of new cosmetics with each tier gained. Heck, Blizzard could pull an Activision and have both – a Battle Pass that provides guaranteed cosmetics upon leveling up and RNG drops from loot boxes. Double the leveling, double the fun?

"If Overwatch went free to play and adopted new monetization models for a more consistent stream of revenue, it seems a given that more resources would be required for its development."

In a way, this would also solve the issue of how to add new heroes. Said heroes could be tied to the Battle Pass and earned at level 1, much like Zero from Black Ops 4. The key issue to keep in mind is that the Battle Pass for Black Ops 4 is free and so was Zero by extension. Will players, especially those who have already paid $40 to $60 for Overwatch besides some cash on cosmetics per seasonal event, put down money on a regular basis for new heroes? Free to play players might not mind all that much but it does raise balance and competitive concerns for the future. Imagine a purchasable hero that gets buffed and only those who own it can benefit. This could lead to accusations of Blizzard trying to buff certain heroes to incentivize spending on them.

There are a number of different ways for Blizzard to handle the monetization of new heroes. Current owners could continue receiving them for free but must pay for Battle Passes to obtain new content (and of course the potential in-game store would have cosmetics that can only be directly purchased). New players would have the base roster as it currently exists but can pay to receive all future heroes (similar to how Paladins handles its roster) while plonking down money for new Battle Passes.

If Overwatch went free to play and adopted new monetization models for a more consistent stream of revenue, it seems a given that more resources would be required for its development. At the very least, we’d have to see more new content during seasonal events to entice players to spend. We’d need to see more cosmetics being produced. There will be more cross-promotion with Overwatch League, though such an approach hasn’t seemingly harmed Valve’s Dota 2 as the success of The International shows.

"There’s no doubt that some executives at Activision-Blizzard would love to see Overwatch grow even further. However, what about the player base?"

All in all, Blizzard will be investing money to make more money. Or it could only slightly adjust its current development schedule at the outset. Balance patches could remain as spaced out as they are now. Key features like role-queue and hero-banning may continue to be ignored. The development team may catch some flak initially but it’s all part of adjusting things around while profits increase.

There’s no doubt that some executives at Activision-Blizzard would love to see Overwatch grow even further with regards to revenue and profits. Free to play would be a pretty good change in that regard. But how would the player base feel? Many players since launch have lauded Blizzard’s approach to content and providing free heroes, maps and modes at no additional cost. These aren’t players who are hyper-competitive and obsess over balance changes but those who hop on for a quick few matches per day (if not per week). Would they be comfortable with this approach? Would they like to see Overwatch pursue a Fortnite-esque model, offering more avenues to directly purchase cosmetics that they want? It’s hard to say. If anything, they may continue plugging away at the game, taking their free cosmetics here and there while continuing to enjoy the gameplay.

If Overwatch ever does go free to play, Blizzard has the unenviable task of drawing in new players with its development model and new progression systems while catering to older players who simply want to continue enjoying what they love. It’s a tight rope to walk but there’s also no denying that something has to change, sooner or later. Blizzard can continue chugging along with its current content delivery model and remain as popular as ever with its current fan base.

It could also take a number of risks that may not even pan out in the long run. Something’s gotta give though because in today’s games-as-a-service obsessed industry, Overwatch may quickly find itself struggling to remain relevant outside of its e-Sports ambitions.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.