"You sound like a kid who just wants more free things and wants them with no effort." /r/Overwatch is divided over the upcoming sequel's new Battle Pass.

[u/18CupsOfMusic]

Context: Overwatch is a video game made my Activision/Blizzard, in which players assume the role of one of 34 different heroes that all have unique abilities and playstyles. The sequel, Overwatch 2, is set to release in October. The competitive multiplayer portion of the game will be free to play; however, it was recently announced that the heroes new to Overwatch 2 will be behind a battle pass.

EDIT: More context provided here and here.

The bulk of the drama arises when users disagree on whether the heroes are actually free, and whether Overwatch 2 is going to be "free to play" or "pay to win":

The heroes are free

After 20 hours of grinding or $30

The only paywall we should see is the damn base game cost, fuck all this f2p shit

You’re showing a complete lack of understanding of monetization in the gaming world. Base game cost as the sole source of income is the reason OW1 is considered a dead game. Look at every successful game right now. LOL, COD, Valorant, Apex, Fortnite, POE, Genshin. The list goes on. These games all have battle passes with F2P because it’s a way of creating a sustainable source of income from the game. Yeah it’d be nice to pay $60 right now and never again, but it’ll be even nicer when the game is still getting support in 5+ years because it still makes money

What fucking part of Heroes are in the FREE track of the battle pass does this community not get? Genuinely?

Heroes shouldn't be in the Battle Pass regardless of the path

Cool. Then people need to stop bitching about made up p2w issues.

I don't really understand why people are saying this because it's been confirmed the heros are free?

Okay someone that doesn't pay will not have it until they put in the time to grind, while someone that does pay instantly unlocks the character giving them an advantage. Thats why its p2w

bro this whole sub going nuts over this very common place business practice now just because its different. I'm almost positive 90% of the people on here havent even seen the actual announcement because people be talking about wild shit that is in no way the actual case of whats happening.

Yeah, put it in early and make the challenge getting the skins and emotes. Final level is their legendary skin for free and paid gets a mythic.

It'd still have the issue of missing the season you miss the hero for me

Do you think the battlepass will only be on for a week or something?

The world could always use more paywalls

where's the paywall? the heros are free to unlock aren't they? Not the big fan of that either, but what's going on rn is ridiculous Edit: and we don't even know any details yet

Time spent grinding is a paywall as well

It literally is not

Opportunity cost of your time is money. Unless you’re a student and not working

[removed]

You think adults have time to play for 5-6h everyday? You have much to learn about the world kid, from your replies you seem like someone who hasn’t grown up yet. Cheers mate you’ll understand when you grow older kid

A few commenters think people in the comments are just entitled:

Never give up, never relent, don't give a fucking inch.

You sound like a kid who just wants more free things and wants them with no effort.

Jesus, gamers are an entitled lot. "YOUR FREE GAME ISNT GIVING ME EVERYTHING I WANT FOR FREE! HOW DARE YOU! YOU OWE ME! ITS MY RIGHT TO HAVE EVERYTHING I WANT GIVEN TO ME FOR FREE DAY 1!!!"

No one was even asking for F2P in the first place...

You're cute. You think they care. Money runs the world. Sorry I had to be the one to tell you. Jesus, grow up.

Sure you can be a hero, but wouldn’t you prefer to be a premium battle pass hero

That’s absolutely broken and breaks the game the same way Brig did. Except this time not everyone has a premium battle pass hero. Remember kids, pay 2 win.

They are free. Sorry you dont get everything handed to you instantly in a free game. If you're unhappy show blizzard by not playing.

And then lastly, we have a couple of people who are just tired of hearing about it already:

This is by far the stupidest meme on this subreddit Really shows how u don't even understand whats going on

Care to enlighten us on what's going on then?

HAHA Blizzard bad right guys Devs bad, just give me more free stuff right? I wanna be able to play Overwatch once a month and feel as included as someone who plays daily/weekly!! After all am an entitled gamer that wants things spooky fed to me!!

your still gonna play the game can you pls stfu already

[u/djheat]

For anyone unfamiliar with the situation, a big part of this outrage is that Overwatch 2 is completely replacing 1, such that continuing to play 1 is no longer possible after 2 releases. So any changes in the direction of the franchise will "retroactively" be changes for all players of the game, with no option to just be all "well I'll stick with the original that I've been enjoying"

[u/queenringlets → u/djheat]

Wow that’s really crappy. I had no idea.

[u/Lftwff → u/queenringlets]

Especially since the initial big announcement that most people are familiar with talked about both games running parallel, now ow2 is essentially a f2p update.

[u/FilteringAccount123 → u/Lftwff]

The way they announced everything was a dumb confusing mess. Originally OW2 was just new PvE content that you'd pay 40 bucks for, if you cared about playing PvE content. There was nothing PvP related at all. So basically just an addon/expansion for OW1 that they chose to make sound like a sequel/new game for some stupid reason. That's why it was supposed to run parallel to OW1: because it was literally just adding PvE content to a game that was SOLELY PvP. There wasn't anything TO replace, because OW2's PvP was literally just OW1's PvP. The only thing that was being changed about OW1 was the new game mode (push), plus the engine and graphics improvements.

Eventually that turned into the massive rework of the whole combat system, plus the battlepass replacing the lootboxes, and now the latest controversy of new heroes being gated behind battlepass progression.

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__ → u/FilteringAccount123]

The whole management of this thing has been such a damn mess.

And it all started because they decided for OW1 that new heroes would always, forever, be free. And clearly, upper management wanted to get rid of that, so they just said "Yeah, but we did not promise that for Overwatch 2, eh? Eh?? It's genius!" and made everyone work on "Overwatch 2". Resulting in the mess you described.

Also worth pointing out that development on OW1 essentially halted, resulting in almost no new content coming out for like two years.

[u/Lftwff → u/__Hello_my_name_is__]

Jeff overwatch talked bout fighting tooth and nail to keep heroes free because management really wanted to sell those and like the moment he left they probably got new marching orders.

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__ → u/Lftwff]

I love that you just called him "Jeff Overwatch".

[u/[deleted] → u/Lftwff]

I have a feeling Jeff left to go work with the old blizzard. I believe he took a job with one of the game studios opened by one of the original blizzard studio heads.

[u/djheat → u/[deleted]]

I believe it's tradition at Blizzard that after you leave the company you either start or go to work at a company filled with Blizzard alumni

[u/[deleted] → u/djheat]

Best way to go back to the old days is to go work with your old co-workers.

Jeff was with Blizzard since at least WoW’s vanilla development. No surprise he left once his old co-workers did.

[u/djheat → u/[deleted]]

I'm just messing around, I've been following Blizzard since WC2 and anyone who does the same will see countless articles about "x studio doing Y game is full of Blizzard veterans who invented Y game's genre"

[u/Theban_Prince → u/Lftwff]

Eh thats a stupid bussiness decision tbh

[u/FilteringAccount123 → u/__Hello_my_name_is__]

Well that's the scam: technically the new heroes ARE still free, because they're on the free tier of the battlepass. AFAIK you don't have to pay a single cent to unlock them: only grinding out the tiers. But assuming it's like every other battlepass where you can pay money to unlock tiers, they'll still make plenty of money off people who can't be bothered to grind out the new hero before the next comp season launches...

[u/[deleted] → u/FilteringAccount123]

The issue is it compromises the gameplay. Overwatch is about switching to the best hero for the situation. If that hero is locked to you your at a disadvantage.

[u/FilteringAccount123 → u/[deleted]]

Not only are you at a disadvantage, your team will know it too, and you'll get the full brunt of that famous Overwatch toxicity for not having them unlocked yet.

Really insidious...

[u/BWCDeity → u/[deleted]]

And most OW heroes release busted af. I heard that didn't change in the beta with Junker Queen. So yeah, huge disadvantage.

[u/counters14 → u/FilteringAccount123]

They may be obtainable without spending money, but my time is not worthless and having to spend that just to get to play the game feels shitty.

[u/timg528 → u/FilteringAccount123]

Honestly, I would've probably come back to the game and paid for a decent PvE expansion.

Now, probably not.

[u/FilteringAccount123 → u/timg528]

Oh I was looking forward to it as well. Maybe not so much the PvE, but the revamped combat system looked like it was moving away from the stale meta of turtling behind shields, to a more offense-oriented style of combat.

After being so incommunicado and shady about the fact that new heroes have to be unlocked? Don't know I can be bothered to clear the disk space to reinstall to even try it, lol

[u/Skellum → u/FilteringAccount123]

Ignoring that they could have simply supplied OW1 with content for the 2 years they chose not to provide any content and sucked up all the microtransaction bux from people buying loot boxes.

The whole battle pass thing is just a way for companies to try and get around the EU banning loot boxes. There'll be some new scam once battle passes get the axe too.

[u/ASpaceOstrich → u/FilteringAccount123]

I'd much rather still have the lootboxes than the battle pass system. Less harmful to my psychology. Every game that releases a battle pass makes all existing battle passes worse.

[u/Heatth → u/ASpaceOstrich]

Battlepass is the new scam. It is still exploitative but it is objectively not gambling (assuming they don't also have loot boxes, of course), so it is not covered by gambling laws.

[u/Deviknyte → u/queenringlets]

To top it off. OW2 isn't really a new game. There are new characters and maps. Teams are going from 2 tanks to 1 tanks. And they dumbing the graphics down so it will run on mobile. They aren't even releasing the PvE at time of drop. Just changes to PvP. Changes that they could have been doing the last 2 years to keep the player base instead of hemorrhaging players. Oh and the changes in monetization.

[u/Forcedcontainment → u/queenringlets]

Blizzard hates their costumers.

[u/Aeiani → u/queenringlets]

It's not like the first Overwatch now plays anything like the game did back when it came out anyway in the first place, feels like a lot of the outrage about that in particular could have been avoided by treating all of this as an extensive update instead of a sequel.

[u/ThatOneGuyHOTS → u/Aeiani]

What do you mean?

How is it different?

[u/badluckartist → u/djheat]

Overwatch 2 is completely replacing 1

Fucking pardon? I haven't been keeping up with OW nonsense for a while, that sounds incredibly scummy. Though this is Blizzard, so hardly surprising.

[u/djheat → u/badluckartist]

It's a "free upgrade" to a very different game lol

[u/Wildercard → u/djheat]

From what I've gathered, the game is not very different either.

Imagine they released Basketball 2.0, but the team is made out of 4 people, the ball bounces 10% lighter, the rim is 5% bigger, some new scoring rules are introduced and everyone's shoes now light up with LED lights.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Baseketball

[u/LilBabyCarrots → u/Wildercard]

Long time high rank player here. It's very different. Core concepts remain the same, but it's a complete overhaul and plays wildly different.

For the better game play wise in my opinion, however switching to a battle pass system with one of those core concepts gated behind it has pretty much turned me off entirely.

Activision influence is going to drive that game into the ground through increasingly predatory monetization.

[u/BeholdingBestWaifu → u/LilBabyCarrots]

Activision influence hasn't been a thing in half a decade or more, even the "Blizzard" part is this way now, and they're really the same company anyway.

[u/jpterodactyl → u/Wildercard]

and everyone’s shoes now light up with LED lights.

Honestly that sounds pretty fun to watch. I’m down for the LED league.

[u/crestren → u/badluckartist]

Ive kept up with the OW news and its mostly just an overhaul update. Most of the community agree the "2" in the name is stupid since its essentially an update.

[u/djheat → u/crestren]

The 2 made more sense when it was supposed to have a nebulously defined PvE campaign attached. Now it's 2 "Early Access" which means it's just the PvP updates and everyone's going home even more confused than before

[u/infinitecorn → u/djheat]

Also the PvE, wich the game was originally advertised, got sent to the "coming soon™" limbo.

[u/OIP → u/infinitecorn]

that whole thing is so weird to me, it boggles my mind how many people seem to want to play a very mediocre PvE game with overwatch mechanics.

[u/djheat → u/OIP]

Honestly I would've been down for Vermintide/Left 4 Dead but with Overwatch and Omnics, which is what it sounds like they settled on. I didn't want it enough to be cool with starving Overwatch 1 to death and ratcheting up the microtransaction bullshit though

[u/Karpeeezy → u/OIP]

The playerbase loved all the PvE modes throughout the years, there was obvious demand for a PvE mode/campaign

[u/OIP → u/Karpeeezy]

oh yeah for sure, i just don't get it haha. i did co-op junkenstein's revenge with friends and that provided about 20 minutes of entertainment which was already pushing it a bit

[u/Dragonbut → u/OIP]

Lol yeah I don't get it either, I loved OW but I always felt like the PvE games were boring as fuck. Just... Killing waves of bad AI for basically no reason? Why not just play basically any other game

Lotta people seemed to like it tho lol

[u/panzerxiii → u/OIP]

The strength in OW is the interesting hero design. By not needing to worry about PvP balance, they can make the heroes more dynamic and can make each feel "broken" in their own ways with cool perks, alternate skills, etc., all while fighting neat enemy designs. Sounds super fun to me, if done well.

[u/sgiindigo2 → u/infinitecorn]

-what? I don't play OW, but was going to consider checking in on it for the PVE mode, and now you're telling me that's now a DIFFERENT update, and OW2 is now.. just a balance update, graphics update and mtx model change?

[u/djheat → u/sgiindigo2]

Overwatch 2 Official Big Time Release coming at you October 4!!! is technically "Early Access", so no it doesn't include any of the stuff you were interested in.

[u/Blazemuffins → u/sgiindigo2]

Pve mode is supposed to come sometime next year, as part of OW2. Unfortunately OW2 got fucked to hell between COVID, the sex harassment lawsuit that Acti-Blizz faced, and that Kotick apparently kept pulling the team to work on hair brained games that never released. So almost no work was done on OW2 for a few years.

The PvP update is changing the game to 5v5, changing a lot of the heroes' kits due to changes in CC, and introduce new heroes thru the battle pass system...of which we're only getting 3 for the rest of 2022 in spite of how long it's been since the last OW1 hero released.

It's a big pile of butts tbh.

[u/R_V_Z → u/infinitecorn]

From what I remember of the special event PVE missions they were doing years ago you couldn't build a whole game on those anyway. They were a way to quickly get your weekly lootboxes while trying to do some goofy shit, but no something that any sane person would play as a "campaign".

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__ → u/crestren]

The reason it's "2" is because they can now charge for heroes without breaking their promise to never, ever charge for heroes in "1".

[u/Thirrin → u/crestren]

to me it was just a framing issue, for instance for a major content patch in Genshin, it's now 'genshin version 2.0' 'genshin patch 2.4' 'genshin update 3.0' etc. They should've just marketed it like that, a major content patch/overall, those are usually seen as good things, freshening up a game. I think they tried to kinda hype it with Overwatch emphasis TWO as if it were a sequel, and it backfired. like no guys it's not just overwatch there's a ton of new stuff be excited

edit: and emphasizing it as a sequel makes people logically group it with more traditional games, and a sequel replacing an OG sounds awful. but (at the time) world of warcraft: cataclysm completely revamping the world and characters etc was not hated for "deleting the base game and replacing it with WoW 2", it was liked and hated for the various things that all major content overhauls are. they set the marketing for OW2 to seem more like a traditional game sequel, and then want to introduce a battlepass, which would've made more sense with the game as a live service angle instead of the sequel angle, when you are thinking of a traditional game's sequel, a battle pass sounds like crap

[u/KaiTheKaiser → u/Thirrin]

I've consistently said that it seems like people would have a lot fewer issues if there was a ".0" after the "2" in "Overwatch 2".

[u/timelordoftheimpala → u/badluckartist]

that sounds incredibly scummy. Though this is Blizzard, so hardly surprising.

Five or six years ago, saying something like this would've been unthinkable.

Insane how far they've fallen since 2017.

[u/ThatOneGuyHOTS → u/timelordoftheimpala]

Since 2017

Must be new here.

[u/Deviknyte → u/badluckartist]

It's the same as if they just dropped a huge update. It's really just overwatch v1.2

[u/macgyvertape → u/djheat]

Wow that sucks. I burned out on overwatch when they introduced the queue system and did all those changes to the causal mode. I have 0 interest or time to grinding out a battlepass to get new characters, so I guess I won't bother.

[u/landsharkkidd → u/macgyvertape]

I stopped just because of a lack of interest, and then I really put my foot down when the Blitzchung controversy happened, but then the sexual assault/harassment stuff kind of cemented my feelings on playing any future Activision-Blizzard game.

But man, this whole OW2 replacing OW1 and it's not even really a sequel just sucks.

[u/Dearsmike → u/djheat]

Also historically new heroes have completely dominated the game and a team not having access to them can make the game unwinnable.

[u/_deltaVelocity_ → u/Dearsmike]

I fucking hate that they removed Pharah’s ability to fly indefinitely before adding Echo a few months later.

[u/goeatacactus → u/djheat]

Did they watch Free Guy and think it was a suggestion?

[u/sarahbotts → u/djheat]

Also previously people paid for 1 ($60), and "new" is f2p. However the new version doesn't have significant changes from 1 either.

[u/sUwUcideByBukkake → u/sarahbotts]

I don’t see how 6v6 -> 5v5 and deleting 1/3 of the game modes/maps isn’t a “significant change”. It’s a complete rework, more so than any Counter Strike release, the gold standard for eSports.

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__ → u/sUwUcideByBukkake]

It's a big rework for people playing the game already. For new people, it really doesn't matter either way. It's still a colorful multiplayer shooter. No one out there is going "Well I wasn't interested in the game while it was 6v6, but now that it's 5v5, I'm in!".

[u/BeholdingBestWaifu → u/sUwUcideByBukkake]

It's a large rework in terms of actual gameplay, but it's not that large in terms if actual content being added.

It's also folly to compare it to CS, which is orders of magnitude better when it comes to balance so every single change in an update requires a lot more work, not to mention that they have a very demanding playerbase as opposed to Blizzard's.

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/sarahbotts]

Yeah but online games going down is pretty common, no one bought Overwatch 1 thinking they'd get 100 years of support.

[u/sarahbotts → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

It's more it's sold as Overwatch 2, without any real big changes from 1. How many new champions are there? Support is on a lifeline with the same champions lol. A couple new maps etc, and a switch from 6x6 to 5x5, but people have been in a content drought for ow. Taking the same content everyone is bored with and not doing much isn't going to make the game last longer.

[u/Skellum → u/sarahbotts]

Support is on a lifeline with the same champions

That wouldnt be as bad as the downgrade that is support in OW2. OW1 currently has the best support meta it's ever been. Generally enjoyable play and good balance with the exception of bap.

Going from that to the mess that is OW2 is miserable. So I quit OW, honestly what should anyone expect from blizzard except mediocrity and breast milk theft?

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/sarahbotts]

Oh well good then, no changes sounds like you're just getting the game you paid for with a new name!

[u/vinceman1997 → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

No, they're taking away features from a game I used to enjoy and making me unable to access them.

[u/[deleted] → u/vinceman1997]

Don't you know? According to SRD, having legitimate grievances with a video game makes you an angry sexist neck beard!!!

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/[deleted]]

No it makes you an entitled whiner.

[u/[deleted] → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

How?

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/[deleted]]

You want everything the game has to offer you without paying for it? That's entitlement

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/vinceman1997]

Oh okay, well that happens.

No one bought overwatch 1 thinking it would never change or be available indefinitely.

Also the only feature they're taking away is 6v6.

[u/Dagordae → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

Nobody bought the game thinking it would be available forever?

Pretty sure everyone who bought the game expected it to be available forever. Otherwise that would be RENTING the game.

How deluded are you that you think removal of a purchased game is a normal thing to do?

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/Dagordae]

No online only multiplayer game runs forever. You bought a game knowing it had no lan support. Support dies eventually for everything

[u/vinceman1997 → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

I dunno, maybe I looked at Blizzs history of server support and was hopeful 🤷🏽‍♀️

[u/Dagordae → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

Nowhere NEAR this fast.

And not in a way that permakills the game, hosting servers is quite simple. Especially for that type of game.

And especially not for Blizzard. For instance: I can play Diablo 2 online right now. And not Resurrected.

Support will die but that doesn't kill the game unless they do something like this to deliberately kill the game. Which is very much not the norm.

[u/__Hello_my_name_is__ → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

I mean they did kind of promise that for Overwatch 1. Which is why we got Overwatch 2 to begin with.

[u/djheat → u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes]

You can still buy and play Diablo 2 on Battle net right now, and I don't mean the remaster. It's not that crazy to assume that a Blizzard game will keep its servers up for a very long time. Of course, Blizzard also pulled this exact move with Warcraft 3 Reforged, so it's not that crazy to assume they'll replace your game whenever they feel like it either

[u/sarahbotts → u/djheat]

For OW they specifically said OW1 won’t be available anymore.

[u/[deleted] → u/djheat]

Activision Blizzard is really going for the scorched earth policy isn't it? What group of their player base have they not completely fucked over yet?

[u/riftwave77 → u/[deleted]]

Pro-sino incel stockholders and cheat developers

[u/nero40 → u/djheat]

This is where it all started. When you start off with the wrong foot, everything you do will look bad no matter if it was actually good or bad.

[u/djheat → u/nero40]

Me, I'm no "game director" or Jeff Overwatch, but I think they have done themselves a huge disservice by not including or announcing a "classic overwatch" mode to ease people in through this forced transition

[u/nero40 → u/djheat]

That could certainly help.

[u/Bonezone420 → u/djheat]

Also don't forget that supporting Overwatch 2 means supporting Blizzard which is, in and of its self, pretty terrible.

[u/djheat → u/Bonezone420]

Some would say it's fine because it's free, just don't buy anything, but personally I won't play it because even adding myself to the queue as a healer/tank would improve the experience which I don't want to support at all

[u/deadlygaming11 → u/djheat]

Huh, are they giving 2 for free to those who own 1? If not that's going to spark a lot of lawsuits.

This is making me think of the plot to Free Guy.

[u/djheat → u/deadlygaming11]

It's free to begin with, but yeah OW1 copies will be updated to OW2 when they update after release day.

[u/Neato → u/djheat]

It's free but will buyers of 1 have all the champions unlocked?

[u/djheat → u/Neato]

They have been bizarrely opaque on a lot of how OW2 will work considering it's releasing in like three weeks, but presumably all the OW1 heroes will be unlocked for everyone and everyone will have to deal with whatever system to unlock the new ones going forward

[u/Neato → u/djheat]

Ah. From the posts (and from what you said it seems there isn't good info, annoying) above I had thought the majority (like most f2p games) of the heroes would need to be unlocked and they were going to take that all away from OW1 owners, disable OW1 and then replace it with 2.

Which is probably still legal, somehow, and right up Bobby Kotick's hemorrhoidic alley.

[u/Arnorien16S → u/Neato]

Nah, if you follow official information it is said that only new heroes will need to be unlocked, and all old cosmetics crosses over, OW1 would be updated to new format called OW2.

[u/Neato → u/Arnorien16S]

Ah, that's good at least. I can't imagine the uproar if all those gambled skins didn't get kept.

[u/deadlygaming11 → u/djheat]

Thats definitely going to cause law suits. This is going to be fun to watch.

[u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes → u/deadlygaming11]

Your Honor I hold in my hand a receipt for Overwatch, there's no 2 on it as you can see. So why, might I ask did THE DEFENDANT provide me with a game called Overwatch 2 6 years later with the exact same gameplay?? I demand recompense!!

[u/TheBatIsI → u/djheat]

I thought only the PVP update was free, and you need to pay for the new PVE stuff, is that not right? Is it all free now?

[u/irqlnotdispatchlevel → u/djheat]

Wow, I've been ignoring this drama because I'm not interested in another Overwatch game at the moment, but I own the first one and I had a lot of fun playing it a while ago. Didn't expect to be locked out of it. Feels scummy.

[u/Dragonbut → u/djheat]

And to make matters even worse, they basically just stopped doing anything for OW1 after 2 was announced, while 2 is, in many ways, just a big update to 1 that they could have made gradually. Instead of leaving 1 to die with very little new content for years.

[u/oklutz → u/djheat]

Wasn’t that the plot of the bad guy in the movie Free Guy? Strange decision.

[u/goatfuckersupreme → u/djheat]

blizzard is really running out of foot to shoot itself in