Overwatch players hate OW2’s battle pass so much they’re asking for loot boxes to come back

"It's quite frankly insulting."

Mei, Winston, and Junkrat display their new cosmetics.
Image via Blizzard Entertainment

Season one of the premium battle pass for Overwatch 2 instantly unlocks the latest support hero—Kiriko—five Legendary skins, the Cyber Demon Genji Mythic skin, and a 20 percent XP boost for the remainder of the season. Initially poorly received in the Overwatch 2 community, the battle pass system continues to be under fire.

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On the official Blizzard forums, the community agrees that the battle pass system in Overwatch 2 is rather poorly designed and forces players to grind for mediocre rewards without any incentive for players who didn’t buy the pass to play the game.

“It’s quite frankly insulting. In other games, if I didn’t want to pay for a battle pass, I would at least get SOME decent free rewards. The fact that even a stupid little flower player icon and some ugly name plates are locked behind premium is INSANE,” an angry fan said. “It alienates players who don’t want to pay for premium or grind for mediocre rewards, and it reinforces the idea that you need to buy the battle pass of the season to even remotely feel rewarded for putting hours into this game.”

On top of that, players emphasize that they are supposed to want to play the game based on its gameplay, not because they are incentivized to play by a battle pass. “See I truly don’t get this mentality at all. We are supposed to want to play the game because the GAMEPLAY is fun. Why do you need the incentive of some random battle pass spray or weapon charm to want to play the game?” another fan added.

Some even believe the original loot box system was better than battle passes since you at least got some free rewards. “The lootboxes were fun, this is just insulting. At least open up a few more rewards for free players in the battle pass instead of MAYBE 2-3 ones that no one wants,” a fan concluded.

Author
Image of Izabela Tomakic
Izabela Tomakic
Staff Writer & World of Warcraft lead. Izabela has a long history with writing and games like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, Fortnite, and The Sims. Before finding her home at Dot Esports in 2021, Izabela was an English teacher and a freelancer at Hotspawn, GGRecon, and Gameranx. In her free time, you’ll find her writing novels, wandering Azeroth, or inting on Summoner’s Rift.