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.

In the first step towards increased communication and a consistent cadence of updates for our community, the Overwatch 2 team is excited to share information about our plans for the upcoming months.

Blizzard are changing the release strategy by decoupling Overwatch 2’s PvP and PvE experiences from one another to get new PvP content into your hands sooner, while we continue to work on PvE.

Closed alpha testing for Overwatch 2 PvP begins today in select regions, and includes Blizzard employees, Overwatch League pros, and a few other select groups to help us prepare for wider testing. 

Then our first PvP Beta will begin in late April for PC in all regions. This closed beta will include a larger group of testers who we will ask to provide gameplay feedback. Our goal for this phase is to test our new features, content, and systems before we shift to stress-testing the servers with a wider player base in future Beta tests. 

This first PvP Beta will include the most significant release we’ve had since our launch. Here are the major items you can expect to see from the first beta:  

• New Damage Hero: Sojourn  
• New Game Mode: Push  
• 5v5 Multiplayer  
• Hero Reworks 
• 4 New Maps 

You can sign up to request access to the Overwatch 2 PvP Beta 1 now on PlayOverwatch.com.

Players will be granted access in phases, and we will add more and more players as we progress through the upcoming beta phases. We will also be sharing regular updates about what to expect in this first beta in the weeks leading up until its launch.  

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 2 also 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.

More details on Blizzard’s plans, including some of the new heroes joining the fray, will be announced in the future as development continues.