Overwatch 2 Will Be Completely Replacing Overwatch 1 At Launch

If you want to play Overwatch 2 when it comes out this October, then you better say goodbye to the original game.

(Photo : Photo from Overwatch's Website)
The Porcelain Skin for Wrecking Ball is one of the three Epic Skins that are up for grabs in Overwatch's Lunar New Year Event.

That's because as reported by GameSpot (and further confirmed by the development team), Overwatch 1 (or Overwatch Prime as some may call it) will be completely replaced by its sequel. As such, the first game that started it all in 2015 might rendered unplayable - perhaps to the dismay of folks who think that OW2 might be changing way too many things.

The news was officially confirmed by OW2 director Aaron Keller in a recent Reddit AMA. In it, he mentioned that the game "will replace the current live service," and anybody who tries playing OW1 will then be asked to update to the current game instead. However, the good thing about OW2 is that it's free-to-play, so people won't have to pay extra considering how OW1 was a paid game.

Some people might be scared that this also means their in-game items from OW1 (including the skins) will be lost. You don't need to fret, as Activision Blizzard has also confirmed that everything you've ever earned from the first game - including currency, skins, and OWL Tokens will carry over to Overwatch 2. And if you still have unopened loot boxes for some reason, these boxes will be automatically opened within OW2 once it's out.

The only thing that won't change much is player MMRs, which the team has confirmed they won't reset in order to maintain gameplay balance (via DotESports).

The aforementioned Reddit AMA where Keller participated was also full of other information on Overwatch 2. Perhaps among the most noteworthy ones is how Keller and the dev team is calling the game "Early Access," writes Kotaku. According to them, they're using the term to indicate that this is the "beginning of great things to come to the game."

Overwatch 2 will finally launch on the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch on October 4th.

A Slight Change From The Past

Before his departure from Activision Blizzard, former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan notably sent out this tweet in 2019 regarding OW1 and OW2:

Overwatch 1 players and Overwatch 2 players will play along side on the same maps
— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) November 1, 2019

He sent out the tweet shortly after Overwatch 2 was first revealed during BlizzCon 2019. It made a lot of people believe that in some form or fashion, the two games will co-exist and allow both OW1 and OW2 players to see each other in crossplay or something. But now we know that that isn't the case.

As reported by PC Gamer, Kaplan also mentioned a year later that maintaining an "Overwatch Classic" (i.e. just like World Of Warcraft Classic" will be very hard to do from a technical perspective. This was a bit of a 180 from Kaplan, which seemed to indicate that there were already no plans to preserve the old game from as far back as two years ago.

Either way, Activision Blizzard has made it clear that they want to maintain OW2 as an actual live service title with new content releasing on the regular - something that has died down in OW1 in recent times.