Overwatch 2 will replace the original Overwatch

theverge.com:

The original Overwatch’s days are numbered. Last week, Blizzard revealed in a Reddit AMA that when Overwatch 2 launches on October 4th, it will overwriteOverwatch prime, effectively ending the six-year-old game.

“When OW2 launches on October 4th it will be a replacement for the current live service,” wrote game director Aaron Keller.

While the changeover will add a wealth of new content — new heroes, new maps, and more — classic Overwatch will cease to be, ending the 6v6 format and banishing the assault game type to the relative obscurity of the custom game corner. The news came as a bit of a surprise since, originally, Overwatch prime and Overwatch 2 were supposed to coexist. During the Overwatch 2 panel at BlizzCon 2019, Aaron Keller, the game’s current director, and Jeff Kaplan, the former game director who left Blizzard over a year ago, described a scenario in which players who upgraded to OW2 would still be able to play with those who didn’t.

With players’ unlocked skins and other cosmetics transferring over, and with Overwatch 2 switching to a free-to-play model, it seems then there was no longer a reason to keep the two games siloed. In a comment to The Verge, the Overwatch development team said:

“Our goal is to not divide our player base and to make the transition to Overwatch 2 as seamless as possible. To that end, when Overwatch 2 launches as a free-to-play live service game on October 4th, it will replace the current Overwatch build. Content players have unlocked in Overwatch will automatically carry over to players in Overwatch 2.”

For players worried about the Overwatch prime features being sunset with the arrival of Overwatch 2 (i.e., loot boxes), the AMA revealed that any unopened loot boxes will have