Overwatch 2 is coming this year and it’ll be free-to-play

digitaltrends.com:

After years of hearing nothing until recently on the Overwatch 2 front, we finally get a new hero announcement, confirmation on a free-to-play launch, and a release date for October 4.

This news comes straight from Activision Blizzard’s new home, Xbox’s Games Showcase where the new hero Junker Queen made her appearance.

Overwatch 2 is the long-awaited follow-up to the original Overwatch, a game that helped put hero-shooters on the map. The game was delayed and has gone radio silent many times due to the controversies surrounding Activision Blizzard. Now with Xbox set to own the company, it’s finally sharing more details including the new character.

Junker Queen is a new tank class character that utilizes a shotgun as her main weapon and a two-handed ax as her melee tool. The trailer hints at her abilities being a dash attack and throwing ax that she can recall back to her hand. She also has a design that is very obviously inspired by the Mad Max series.

We weren’t shown only a new hero but also got confirmation that Overwatch 2 will be a free-to-play title. However, the entire package won’t be going without charge. The trailer shown during the showcase shared that only the player-vs-player modes of the game are included on the free-to-play side. This most likely means that other separate modes, including a story mode, will come at an additional charge.

Overwatch 2‘s free-to-play PvP mode is finally set to launch for early access on October 4, 2022. It’s still unconfirmed when the rest of the package will release.