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.

With the launch of cross-progression, players can merge multiple Overwatch accounts to carry progression and in-game cosmetics into Overwatch 2 on a single profile. Starting August 16, every player with a linked console account will be prompted at login to identify, select, and confirm the accounts you want to merge. Once you approve, we will prepare your accounts to be merged during the release of Overwatch 2.

All players will need a battle.net account to play Overwatch 2, regardless of platform. Progress from linked console accounts will be stored on your battle.net account, which will share in-game cosmetics and progress across the linked accounts.

There will be one opportunity to merge console accounts, so make sure you double-check which accounts you are merging before you confirm!

How do I merge my accounts?

Here are the steps you can take to merge your console account to a battle.net account:

1. Login to Overwatch from your console account.
2. Follow the on-screen prompts to scan a QR Code on your mobile phone.
3. Enter the code displayed on your console to connect to or create your Blizzard Battle.net Account.
   1. If you have not verified your mobile phone number before, you will be prompted to do that through SMS authentication.
4. Once complete, you will be prompted to confirm your account upon the next game login to merge your accounts.

Once you merge a console account with a battle.net account, you will be unable to link to a different console account on the same platform. Double-check to make sure you are linking the correct account to your battle.net account.

If you encounter errors while linking your accounts, follow the instructions on the Account Link Common Problems support article.

Check out the Account Link support article for more information on how to merge your accounts.

The platforms included in account merge are Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

To setup from PC, you can visit the Battle.net Connections webpage.

Only one account per platform can be linked together. For example, if you have two accounts on PC, you will not be able to merge those accounts. The same goes for multiple accounts on Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo Switch.

After merging your console accounts to a battle.net account, all the progress on those console accounts will be stored on the battle.net account.

You can unlink your console accounts from your Battle.net account at any time. However, there is a 1-year cooldown for linking new accounts to your Battle.net account.

When you link a new console account to your battle.net account, it can access the progression and in-game items from the battle.net account. However, the new console account will not transfer its progress and in-game items to the linked battle.net account.

Players from all platforms will need a battle.net account to play Overwatch 2.

For console players, account merge is also the only way to access and carry over progress into Overwatch 2.

For PC players, progress will automatically carry over into Overwatch 2, and you have the option to merge any console accounts to your battle.net account.

If you don’t confirm your account merge in-game, you will continue to be served an in-game screen that identifies your accounts and prompts approval to merge. You can check to see which accounts are linked to your battle.net account here.

All items in the Hero Gallery across platforms will be present in the merged battle.net account. This includes all sprays, emotes, skins, and everything else in the current Hero Gallery tab in-game. Duplicate cosmetics across platforms will be merged into a single battle.net account.

More answers on the upcoming account merge in Overwatch 2, which can all be found on the FAQ here.

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 2also 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.

Overwatch 2 is coming to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC on October 4, 2022.