Ahead of the launch of Overwatch 2’s Season 2, Blizzard has announced that it will be easier for free-to-play players to acquire the newest hero, Ramattra. Instead of being a level 55 reward, Ramattra is being knocked down to a level 45 reward, meaning players will unlock them slightly earlier than they had to earn Kiriko in the previous season. Although this is a step in the correct direction by Blizzard, it doesn’t fully address the issue many have had with Overwatch 2’s free-to-play service model.
Players’ most significant issue with the game is the lack of rewards they can earn as they play, the cost of skins, and the way skins are unlocked. Right now, the only way to make a lot of the festive skins involves using the game’s premium currency, which is rarely provided to players in challenges or events and is mainly rewarded through weekly challenge completions.
In the first Overwatch, the seasonal events had a good chance to give players an opportunity to roll on skins and earn premium currency through rewarded loot boxes. Although the loot boxes are gone, what’s left is a much more dangerous alternative of requiring players only to use real-world money for cosmetics or forcing players to play out an entire season to only redeem their currency on a single item.
With these items being purely cosmetic, none of this is game-breaking, and it is a good sign to see Blizzard trying to address the game mechanics by making the playable characters easier to acquire.
We’d like to see the levels knocked down a bit more, and we’re keen to see how quickly Blizzard responds to the Season 2 balance changes. The changes in Season 1 were slow, with players waiting weeks for a character to return or for a balance issue to be resolved around a particularly difficult character, Sojourn being the perfect example. Hopefully, Blizzard has learned from Overwatch 2’s first few months and is ready to step it up in 2023.
It should be noted that this change should not affect any players who are already planning to purchase the Premium Battle Pass track. Ramattra will instantly unlock this way, available on the first day you buy it. Regardless, this little step forward doesn’t strike a cord at the real issue many players have a problem with Overwatch 2.
