Blizzard Details Player Progression System Added to Overwatch Via Closed Beta

After a month-long hiatus, the beta for Blizzard’s upcoming multiplayer first person shooter Overwatch is back online today, and in its second phase. Many changes have been brought to the game as development wraps up before its expected Q1/Q2 release, including new playable heroes and modes. In the latest update, player progression finally comes to the game and Blizzard has shared extensive in-depth details on what to expect from this new system.

As promised back in December, the progression system will not award weapons, skills, and performance boosts as with games like Diablo or World of Warcraft but rather, cosmetic items. Your Hero will progress as you earn experience and level up your account. Experience is earned by playing Quick Play or Play vs A.I. games, with points determined by performance-based aspects of participation, from total deaths to kill streaks, objective completion times, and more. The .gif above is the victory screen, which will give you an idea of what your character will be judged on. Earn enough experience, and you will be given a Loot Box.

The Loot Boxes awards four random items of varying qualities: common, rare (blue), epic (purple), and legendary (orange). Each will glow to indicate what level of items are contained within, and each are promised to have at least one rare. The items are purely aesthetic, offering the player a chance to express themselves through cosmetic means like player icons, skins, taunts and emotes, new animated highlight intros, new spoken lines to use when chatting with other players, victory poses, and graffiti-like sprays to mark locations with your tag. And if you pick up an item you already have, the game will give you a credit instead. To see what some of the player skins and sprays look like, flip through our gallery below.

For full skinny on all the changes coming to the game by way of the beta, check out this full list of patch notes. Be sure to also check out the ten minute video above, where Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan goes into even more detail about what the team has been working on since their online hiatus. Overwatch is expected on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One sometime in the first half of this year. For more Overwatch related news, catch up on all the latest posts by hitting up our site tag.