Ah guy. This won’t be well received.
Since last week, I’ve got access to a review build of Overwatch 2, and I’ve been exploring it to see what’s new or hadn’t been previously revealed. One thing stood out as soon as I clicked on the Overwatch League tab in the store: increased costs for both team skins and the OWL Legendary skins.
I advise purchasing the Happi Genji skin as soon as possible if you’re interested in doing so. It was released for Summer Showdown. The skin will cost more once Overwatch 2 is switched on, even though it will still be accessible until November 15.
At the moment, the skin costs 200 OWL tokens. Along with the other OWL Legendary skins, this will rise to 300 OWL tokens in Overwatch 2. The cost of team skins will also increase. Each will now cost 150 OWL tokens instead of the previous 100.
The Legendary skins’ alternate iterations, which are altered in the hues of OWL tournament champions, cost 200 tokens. I’m not sure if the two variants are priced differently as a result of the fact that I already own the base Luchador Reaper skin.
There are other factors as well. A spokesman for Blizzard responded when I questioned them about the price rises and their justifications, “OWL prices are increasing to reflect our Shop pricing.” As a result, purchasing OWL tokens will also cost you extra. 100 tokens will now cost $6 as opposed to $5.
Therefore, you will have to pay $18 if you want to purchase a Legendary OWL skin in Overwatch 2 and you haven’t obtained any free tokens through watching OWL matches. That represents an 80% increase over the price of the same skins in Overwatch. In effect, an OWL team skin will now cost $9 rather than $5.
Even if you already have a large collection of free OWL tokens, the cost of the skins will increase by 50%. As a result, you might need to be more careful about how you use the tokens. To earn enough tokens for an OWL Legendary skin, you must essentially watch 60 hours of live Overwatch League games (up from 40 hours). To obtain enough tokens for a team skin, you’ll need to run the stream for 30 hours (compared with 20 hours of watch time now).
This is awful. I completely understand the Overwatch 2 team’s need for revenue to support the game’s continuous development, and I’ve long supported Overwatch’s transition to a free-to-play model. Even if players may still receive OWL tokens for nothing, nickel and diming devoted followers by raising the price of the same skin after switching to Overwatch 2 is unreasonable.
Additionally, Blizzard no longer allows Overwatch 1 seasonal event skins to be purchased with Credits (the currency you earned from loot boxes). Soon, you’ll have to pay for those with Overwatch Coins, the game’s other in-game currency. The cost of legendary seasonal skins is 1,900 Coins, or $19. While that is roughly comparable to premium skins in other free-to-play games, it still feels like a lot to someone who is switching from the original game where they could be obtained for free.
(The grey and gold symbols in the aforementioned screenshot represent credits and coins, respectively. Otherwise, their designs are too alike. Do not be misled!)
Even if you finish every weekly challenge throughout the length of a season, there are ways to gain Coins that are completely free, so playing alone won’t net you very much. There are 540 Coins available each season, and you can earn up to 60 Coins per week. That is insufficient for an expensive Battle Pass (which is 950 Coins). Every two seasons or so, if you don’t make any purchases from the shop, you can collect enough Coins for one premium Battle Pass.
If you still have any Credits left over from the first game, you can use them to access any of the original Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko cosmetics (the ones that aren’t unlocked by the Battle Pass).
Oh, and it doesn’t appear that Overwatch 2 offers any ways to get Credits. You’ll need to use Coins to unlock previous cosmetics whenever you run out.
For new Overwatch 2 players, earning the older cosmetics and some of the game’s countless cool skins, emotes, sprays, and other goodies will be more difficult. That’s a shame because the prices look a tad high overall. Even if I can quibble with the new monetization model’s scope, it is the way things will be moving forward, for better or worse.
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