Overwatch’s next season will finally move the hero shooter more in line with the other live service games that don’t purely rely on FOMO for their battle passes.
In season 4, Blizzard will “unvault” an old battle pass and make it available again. The details on how exactly the system will work are slim at the moment, but it sounds like a specific old battle pass will become available halfway through every season going forward. It will be on sale for anyone who doesn’t own it or simply made available for anyone who paid for it previously, and it will be permanent from that point on.
There is one catch however: The premium currency, player titles, and Mythic-level skins that were in old battle passes won’t be available in the new unvaulted versions. Overwatch used to have new heroes locked behind a tier in the old battle passes too, but I am guessing they’ve been replaced with a generic reward.
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Blizzard says there will be more information about exactly how these will work closer to the halfway point of the season, which will be sometime next month.
Ditching some of the FOMO involved with battle passes is always a welcome change in my book. It’s a little sad that it won’t be every battle pass opening up at the same time. You will still need to wait for each one to show back up. However, it’s a step in the right direction, especially when games like Marvel Rivals have done this for a while now.
The old battle passes will act like a linear progression of rewards that will sit alongside Overwatch’s new battle pass system that is debuting with season 4. Blizzard is basically taking Fortnite’s idea and giving you a way to unlock major cosmetics in whatever order you want. Instead of a linear set of battle pass tiers, they’ll now be broken up into “tracks” consisting of multiple rewards. You’ll also get one chance to swap out a Legendary skin you don’t want with another from a curated selection.
Blizzard stressed that the new battle pass system won’t make it take longer to complete in a recent blog post. The goal is to give you a way to choose skins for heroes you actually play. The only downside to this that I can see is that the premium currency to buy Mythic skins is now only unlocked at the end instead of sprinkled throughout.
Considering Overwatch is reportedly doing very well for Blizzard, it makes me wonder if this is a result of the studio loosening up on how it monetizes it. The season 4 trailer just teased the third skin collab with popular K-pop group Le Sserafim—who are also going to be at this year’s BlizzCon—so I think it knows where the money’s really at.
Season 4 and new mech hero D.Mon will launch on August 11.
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