Tomorrow is the big day for Overwatch 2. The game will launch on October 4 at 12 pm Pacific Time, ending months of anticipation. As players are getting ready to discover this new version of Blizzard’s FPS, it seems there will be even more grind in Overwatch 2 than we expected.
A user shared a picture on Twitter showing Overwatch 2’s main menu. It shows that only the Quick Play Open Queue menu is available at first, all other modes being locked – including the Role Queue option.
If locking the competitive modes until a player has acquired enough experience makes sense, it seems weird that the Quick Play would be locked for new players. This mode lets anyone play freely, without any competitive rank and the pressure that comes with ranked games.
According to this screenshot, players can only join Open Queue games and not Role Queue. The difference between these modes is that anyone can pick any role in Open Queue, while players need to choose between the tank, healer, or DPS role before tagging in Role Queue.
Open Queue used to be the only available mode in the original Overwatch. In 2019, Blizzard introduced Role Queue, ending three years of total chaos in competitive matches. Teams could no longer rule the infamous GOATS meta or end up with six DPS players in a single match. If Role Queue wasn’t loved by everyone at first, it ended up being the most common way of playing Overwatch and the official rule for the Overwatch League.
Upon launching Overwatch 2, players won’t be able to play the game as they used to. Everyone will have to complete five games of Quick Play Open Queue before being able to switch to another mode.
The Role Queue being locked for new players isn’t the only concern of Overwatch 2 fans. The introduction of a Battle Pass is redefining Overwatch’s economy, as Blizzard dropped the usual loot boxes for a more common Battle Pass approach. This also means that new heroes are now locked until you either pay a fee or play enough games in a season to unlock them.
On top of these Battle Pass limitations, new players will have to grind before they can unlock the returning heroes of Overwatch. Instead of having access to the roster of the original game and discovering the new ones later, new players will go through the First Time User Experience build. It will unlock everything progressively over the course of approximately 100 matches. And since a game of Overwatch takes on average 15 minutes to complete, new users will have to play for about 25 hours before discovering the entire experience.
Overwatch 2 is coming out on October 4, 2022, at 12 pm Pacific Time. It will be available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Microsoft Windows.
