Overwatch 2 Will not Launch this Year

In a recent financial report to Activision Blizzard investors, the company’s CFO Dennis Durkin confirmed that the sequel to Overwatch will not be released until at least 2022. Meanwhile, the company plan to launch the next Call of Duty game by the end of 2021.

Despite not releasing the game in the near future, Blizzard plan to share a significant update on the sequel at the upcoming online version of BlizzCon. The conference, which was moved to online due to the COVID-19 pandemic and thus renamed to BlizzConline, is scheduled for February 19 – 20th, and will be free to watch for everyone.

Overwatch 2, which was announced during Blizzcon 2019, is supposed to add a PvE campaign and new PvP game modes, as well as enhance the game’s visuals and progression system. The developers promised that owners of both the original game and its sequel would be able to play together. As customary to Blizzard, the company has never stated the game’s potential release date, leaning towards their usual approach of “it’s done when it’s done”.

The sequel’s late release also means that Overwatch players will not see new heroes for a while, as Echo, who was released almost a year ago, is the final character added to the original game. The developers stopped adding new heroes to the original game because they wanted to launch the sequel with a bundle of new characters.

Earlier Blizzard revealed that this year Overwatch League will start later than usual – it is scheduled to begin in April. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the league was moved to online and split into two regional divisions – East and West.