In Overwatch 2, players will take on the roles of the world’s heroes in cooperative missions that challenge them to team up, power up, and stand together against an overwhelming outbreak of threats around the globe. Players will also battle each other in the next evolution of competitive Overwatch play, which carries forward existing players’ accomplishments and loot collections and features the current complete Overwatch roster, a new generation of heroes, new internationally recognizable maps that widen the scope of the world, a new Push map type, and more.

In the sequel’s action-packed cooperative Story Missions, players will experience the advent of a new Overwatch as Winston, Tracer, and other members of the original Overwatch join forces with a new generation of heroes. Players will take an active role in the Overwatch saga as a new global crisis unfolds through a series of intense, high-stakes four-player missions. As the story progresses, players will team up as different sets of heroes and fight to defend the world from the omnic forces of Null Sector, uncover the motives behind the robotic armies’ attacks, and come face-to-face with rising new threats around the globe.

The battle continues in Hero Missions, where the Overwatch team will be called upon to go beyond their limits as they deploy across the planet, defending cities against robot invasions, taking on elite Talon agents, and battling the villainous forces laying siege to the world. In this highly replayable mode, players can level up their favorite heroes and earn powerful customization options that supercharge their abilities in co-op play—such as altering Reinhardt’s Fire Strike to ignite nearby enemies or modifying Tracer’s Pulse Bomb to cause a devastating chain reaction—granting the extra edge they need against the overwhelming odds.

Attention, world - after three years away, we’re thrilled to announce that the Overwatch World Cup is returning for 2023, and the competition will be bigger than ever: new game, new players, and new ways of spotlighting your country and region on a global scale.  

We’ll reveal additional program details as they’re ready, but here’s the big picture for the 2023 Overwatch World Cup… 

In January, we’ll announce the 36 countries and regions competing in the 2023 Overwatch World Cup, and that’s also when competition committee applications will open. Each competition committee will be responsible for organizing tryouts for their country and region, following Blizzard guidelines. 

Alongside regular tryouts, we’re introducing a new avenue for players to compete for a spot on their team. This comes in the form of an open tournament format: World Cup Trials. In February, the World Cup Trials competition will earn winning players a direct spot in the tryouts for their team. Players will still be able to sign up for regular tryouts taking place in March. Regular tryouts will have a Competitive Rank requirement of Diamond and above, so aspiring players should start climbing the ladder now!  

Also, in 2023 we will be offering some challenges and rewards for all players to help celebrate the return of the Overwatch World Cup. 

In June, after team rosters are finalized, Overwatch World Cup qualifiers are planned to take place through regional online competition, narrowing down 36 teams to 16 for the next phase of the tournament. Those 16 teams will then battle it out in a LAN environment in the fall of 2023 to determine our first World Cup champion since 2019. 

Whether you’re a pro, aspiring pro, or casual player, there are tons of ways to get involved. Stay tuned for further announcements, including details about each stage of the 2023 Overwatch World Cup, viewer information, and much more!

To help realize these missions, the sequel also introduces significant engine upgrades that support larger maps for co-op (PvE) play, as well as the wide variety of new enemies and factions that players will encounter on their missions. The game also introduces visual enhancements designed to bring players’ favorite heroes—and their new looks for Overwatch 2—to life in greater detail.

Overwatch 2 also represents the beginning of a new era for the series’ world-renowned competitive 6v6 play. In addition to carrying forward all of the original game’s heroes, maps, and modes—as well as existing Overwatch players’ accomplishments and loot collections—the sequel adds multiple new playable heroes to the ever-growing roster; widens the scope of the world with even more maps and locations; and adds a new Push map type, in which two teams compete to make a robot (that happens to be pretty good at pushing things) push the map’s objective to their opponent’s side.

Overwatch 2also renews Blizzard’s commitment to continue supporting the existing Overwatch community. Current Overwatch players will battle side-by-side with Overwatch 2 players in PvP multiplayer. In addition, current Overwatch players will be able to play Overwatch 2 heroes and maps, ensuring the core PvP experience remains dynamic and vital for today’s community in the Overwatch 2 era.

Overwatch 2 is available for Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC.