Collectors who are just starting with Overwatch now need to take a deep breath. Because Blizzard’s hero shooter is expensive if you want all the cosmetics from part 1.
With the launch of Overwatch 2, a lot has changed in Blizzard’s hero shooter. Especially the way you acquire new skins or other cosmetic rewards has changed. The days of loot boxes are over; instead, there’s now a battle pass and in-game shop.
This change, however, makes “easily obtainable” content suddenly ridiculously expensive skins. Because old skins, emotes, voice lines, and more that you haven’t earned in Overwatch 1 must be bought in Overwatch 2 for “Overwatch coins.” That’s the premium currency you can purchase in the shop or earn in very small amounts.
Anyone who needs all the content as it was in Overwatch 1 would have to invest a lot of money – a whopping 12,000 euros.
Where does the number come from? In the Overwatch subreddit, the user loliscoolyay4me published an extensive table. There he lists all the content that was in Overwatch 1 – all the different skins, emotes, voice lines, sprays, and highlight intros.
This content was available back then through loot boxes, which could be relatively easily earned. Every few hours of gameplay, you would receive a loot box, and during events, there were even more.
If you wanted to buy all of this content from Overwatch 1, you would need 1,401,500 Overwatch coins – which corresponds to a purchase price of just over 12,000 euros.
Overwatch coins cost 10 euros for 1,000 pieces. The price decreases a bit when you buy more – because then 11,600 credits cost just under 100 euros. The table assumes the “cheapest” purchase price, that is, the largest package.
The dollar costs listed in the table can be applied 1:1 to euros – because Overwatch coins currently have the same price for dollars and euros.
It should be noted, however, that the actual price would be a bit lower because some of the spray logos can no longer be purchased directly and are instead obtained through achievements. This would lower the price (and content) by a few euros.
Can you unlock the content without money? Basically, the answer here is “Yes,” because at least for individual cosmetic items, this is possible and also realistic. However, if you want all the nice items from Overwatch 1, you might be out of luck. Because per week, you can only earn a very small (almost laughable) amount of Overwatch coins – namely 60 pieces.
If you want to buy skins that cost 1,000 or even more coins with that, you can calculate in your head how long it would take to purchase items. A single skin that costs “only” 1,000 coins would already take 17 weeks.
What do you think of these prices? Is it “okay” because Overwatch 2 is now free-to-play? Or is it just absurd?
If you are interested in the heroes – we have a first tier list for all Overwatch 2 characters
