Overwatch 2 will be getting a major overhaul next week, on February 10, including dropping the 2 from its title and reverting to Overwatch. This will coincide with the beginning of a new year-long storyline event entitled The Reign of Talon. Overwatch 2 was released in 2022, at which point the free-to-play sequel completely replaced its predecessor. A decision that has long been criticized.
This news was announced via the Overwatch Spotlight event, which was broadcast by Blizzard today. The title will also be adding five new playable heroes to the roster, a change from the typical release model of every other in-game season. These characters are Emte, a run-and-gun soldier-type assault character; Domina, a beam and barrier tank character; Mizuki, a support character with ties to the Hasimoto clan; Anran, a fire-type assault character to complement her brother Wuyang’s water-based attacks; and Jetpack Cat, a support character that is indeed a cat with a jetpack.
Overwatch will also be getting a Nintendo Switch 2 dedicated version, which is set to release in the spring of this year. Overwatch 2 is already available on the Nintendo Switch, so via backward compatibility, it can be played on the next generation hardware as well, but assumably, this version will see several quality-of-life improvements over the one available. Very little was said about this version, so what exactly it will entail remains to be seen.
Beyond the 5 characters slated for February, five additional characters are planned to be released throughout the year. Hero trailers, stories, comics, and map updates, and more are planned to be released as well, all focusing on some part of the running theme of Talon’s impending reign. A new story arc is planned to begin in 2027, presumably making these yearly overarching events.
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