Blizzard has announced Overwatch 2 cross-progression will be coming to the team-based multiplayer shooter. This will mean that, cosmetics, stats, presets and ranks will be brought forward from the original game to the sequel, and anyone that’s been playing across multiple platforms up to this point will be able to merge their accounts, with progression being cross-platform after that point.
This is…. not entirely optional. As was made mandatory for Overwatch last year to enable cross-play, all players of Overwatch 2 will continue to need a battle.net account, regardless of platforms. If you’ve been playing across multiple platforms, then as of this week, you will be prompted at game login to pick the accounts that you want to be merged at the time that Overwatch 2 launches in October.
Console players must account merge to carry over progress to Overwatch 2, while this will happen automatically on PC. If you skip the account merge process, then the game will keep nagging you until you do so.
This will be a tricky transition, but Blizzard has outlined just how the merging process will treat different data points, unlocks and stats in an FAQ. Here’s the gist, though:
- Cosmetics – All items in the Hero Gallery will be merged, with no compensation for any duplicates.
- Competitive & Skill Rating – PC and console have separate rankings by input pool, but if playing on multiple consoles, the highest rank will be used.
- Stats – Total values (eg. playtime) will be added together, while best values (eg. kill streaks) will take the best value from merged accounts.
- Endorsements – The highest Endorsement will be used.
- Achievements – In-game achievements will be merged to the battle.net account. Console-specific achievements will still be platform specific.
For most people, this should all be self-explanatory and go off without a hitch, but I’m sure there’s some strangely interlinked battle.net and console accounts out there, so it’s worth paying attention to what Overwatch 2 will ask of you during this transition.
There’s a lot of change coming for Overwatch 2’s launch, with the game shifting from paid to free-to-play, ditching the loot boxes of old, shuffling over to 5v5 battles instead of 6v6, and throwing in new maps, characters and modes into the mix.
Overwatch 2 is coming to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC on 4th October. It will be branded as an early access release at that point, but this is the full game and a full in-place replacement for Overwatch.
Source: Battle.net