Blizzard has confirmed the Overwatch 2 release date, letting fans know the exact time they can expect to jump into the game and play come the October 4 early access launch date. Overwatch 2 is set to make major changes to Blizzard's hero-shooter game, chief among these being a shift to a free-to-play monetization model and dropping the number of players on any given team from six to five. Overwatch 2 is completely replacing the existing Overwatch experience when it launches on October 4, preceded by some downtime.
It's previously been confirmed that the last full day to play Overwatch 1 will be October 2. The servers will then go down on October 3, but they will be brought back up on October 4 with the early access launch of Overwatch 2. While some may have been hoping for a midnight launch or something along those lines, Blizzard has confirmed that Overwatch fans will have to wait until the afternoon to play the sequel.
Blizzard has confirmed that the Overwatch 2 servers will go online starting October 4 at 12pm PT. At that point, fans of the hero-shooter should be able to log in and check out everything the sequel has to offer, from new Push maps to the three new heroes. Of course, that's assuming that there are no technical issues with launch that push the launch time back.
Overwatch 2 Release Date and Time
- October 4 at 12pm PT
Prior to the Overwatch 2 launch, there are steps that fans can take to make sure their accounts are ready to go come October 4 at 12pm PT. There are two things specifically that they will want to do. One is adding SMS protection to their Battle.net account. As recently announced by Blizzard, Overwatch 2 requires a valid phone number to play, and this means everyone's Battle.net account needs to have their phone number added to it.
The other thing players can do to prepare for Overwatch 2 is merge their accounts. Those who have only ever played Overwatch on one platform don't have to worry about this, but those that have played it on multiple platforms will want to ensure that their console accounts are merged to their Battle.net account. The original Overwatch currently has an option in its main menu to do this, so fans will want to do that as well leading up to the sequel's October 4 launch.
For those that will be playing Overwatch 2 as their first Overwatch game, there is nothing they need to do to prepare beyond maybe adding the phone number to their Battle.net account. However, new players should know that they will have to go through the First Time User Experience to unlock all the game modes and OW1 heroes, which will take about 100 matches, according to Blizzard's estimations.
Overwatch 2 launches in early access on October 4 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.