Players who have never played the first Overwatch will need to spend a lot of time with the sequel, Overwatch 2, in order to unlock the 32 heroes that are already in the game. Blizzard Entertainment announced Tuesday that as part of Overwatch 2’s “first-time user experience,” new players will unlock the game’s modes and all original Overwatch heroes “over the course of approximately 100 matches.”
In a blog post describing how the game developer planned to handle an influx of new players with Overwatch’s free-to-play transition, Blizzard cited “constant feedback from new players feeling overwhelmed by multiple game types and heroes.”
According to Blizzard, new players to Overwatch 2 will be able to access all game modes and in-game chat after just a few matches, but they will need to win 50 games in Quick Play to access Competitive games and play about 100 games to unlock nearly all of the game’s characters.
Blizzard stated most of those new-player limitations are abolished while playing in a group “so new players can team up with their friends at any time to play practically any game modes,” with Competitive mode being the exception. 34 of the game’s 35 characters will be available to players who transfer from Overwatch to Overwatch 2 at launch.
Players who already own Overwatch can anticipate some changes in version 2, as features like player portrait borders, player levels, and Competitive skill tiers won’t appear in the game. The Endorsements for Overwatch have also been simplified, going from three to just one.
Overwatch 2 players of all stripes will also face a new requirement: Starting Oct. 4, Overwatch 2’s launch day, players will need to have a phone number attached to their Battle.net account to play. That function is called SMS Protect and is characterised as an additional layer of protection aimed at avoiding cheating and other negative player activities. The Battle.net account’s phone number “cannot be used on numerous accounts at the same time, and users cannot create multiple accounts using the same phone number,” according to Blizzard. Additionally, “certain types of lines, including pre-paid and VOIP, cannot be utilised for SMS Protect.”
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