New skins in Overwatch 2 can be earned – in theory. In practice, however, it takes so long that we probably won’t experience it.
Overwatch 2 launched a few days ago and brought a major overhaul of the base game. There are now “5v5” matches instead of the previous “6v6”, Blizzard aims to crack down harder on trolls and cheaters, and the controversial loot boxes have been eliminated.
Skins and other cosmetic rewards are now part of the shop or part of the new battle pass. While there is still an option to earn skins, voice lines, emotes, and more, as the premium currency can also be earned in-game. But to be clear: It’s a joke and unfortunately not a funny one.
While my friends and I were playing over the last two days, we occasionally talked about the heroes and their skins while waiting for new matches. They are, similar to Overwatch 1, priced with a purchase cost. What used to be purchasable with “credits” are now “Overwatch coins” or “Overwatch Coins”.
Overwatch Coins are the premium currency in Overwatch 2. You can either buy them for real money or earn them – at least in theory.
A skin costs, depending on rarity, between 250 and 1,900 coins. The “250” skins are mostly just new recolors of the original with minor adjustments. The really fancy skins with new designs fall within the 1,000 and 1,900 categories.
Between €2.50 and €19 for a skin, that is unfortunately normal in the video game industry now. You could probably come to terms with that.
32 weeks of playing for a single skin
What my friends and I can’t cope with is the “slap in the face” with which Overwatch 2 pretends that you can simply earn skins. Because while that is possible in theory, in practice it is nothing more than a torture.
The catch is that you can only earn a very small amount of Overwatch coins. Every week exactly 60 coins can be earned by completing all weekly challenges.
Or, to put it in perspective:
- For a “250” skin, you have to play for 5 weeks.
- For a legendary “1,000” skin, you have to play for 17 weeks.
- For a legendary “1,900” skin, you have to play for 32 weeks.
In other words: If you want to unlock one of the numerous, expensive legendary skins, you have to play for 8 months and complete all weekly challenges every single week without ever being able to afford anything else.
For. A. Single. Skin.
It’s no wonder that a large part of my friends after two evenings of playing Overwatch now says: “The loot boxes in Overwatch 1 weren’t that bad after all.”
Because when you have the choice between “randomly unlocking something every few hours” or “specifically getting a single item in over half a year”, the answer is quite clear.
449 years of playing to unlock all skins in Overwatch 2
A little fun fact on the side: If you were to attempt to unlock all cosmetic rewards from Overwatch 1 through this free method, it would take a whopping 23,359 weeks. That’s just over 449 years.
I do like playing Overwatch 2, but whether the game offers enough long-term motivation for me to still want to play the shooter in the year 2471, I doubt that for now.
Even if Blizzard were to declare “I must be crazy” weeks and change the game so that you could earn 60 Overwatch coins daily (instead of weekly), you would still need to play for 32 days to unlock one of the 1900 skins – and complete every single challenge every day.
At least: Unlocking everything from Overwatch 1 would only take 64 years then.
If you can easily multiply the rate at which you earn premium currency by seven and it’s still such an absurdly long time, then the whole system isn’t designed for you to get anything this way.
Free2Play has to make money – but does it have to be so overwhelming?
And yes: I fully understand that Overwatch 2 is now free-to-play and skins will be the primary source of revenue. I completely get that. However, this limitation of 60 coins per week is almost an insult and really just a showcase for the shop.
Because anyone who quickly does the math in their head and calculates what a cool skin requires in terms of playtime can’t help but to resign and just throw money at the problem. Or to quote one of my friends:
“Honestly? I’d rather have nothing than the 60 coins, because they feel like an insult.”.
And I can understand it.
My group is definitely hoping that Blizzard will change these numbers a bit. Because if Overwatch 2 really wants such a constant flow of content that new content and skins appear every 9 weeks, they should definitely be a bit more generous with the premium currency. You will still have to reach into your wallet to get all the cool skins.
What do you think about the new system? Are the prices and the amount of currency you can earn okay? Or do you also think that it needs to be adjusted?
We found the “secret message from Jeff Kaplan” very fitting.
