UPDATE: Overwatch 2 has been officially confirmed by Blizzard Entertainment, confirming rumours about its development first published by Esports News UK two years ago.
An announcement trailer was shown off at Blizzcon 2019’s opening ceremony this evening:
There’s a new look for the game, updated character models as well as co-op missions, a new ‘push’ map type, where teams battle to take control of a robot that begins in a central location, then push it toward the enemy base.
While some of our details in our original article below were incorrect, these were mainly around launch plans, but the news that it was in development was correct.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE (May 19th 2017): Blizzard Entertainment is apparently working on a sequel to its competitive FPS Overwatch, which could be due to arrive later this year.
Esports News UK caught wind of a rumour which has been verified to us by several senior games industry sources.
The rumour suggests that Overwatch 2 will be an outright sequel, like Destiny 2, not a continuation of or small expansion to the original game.
Blizzard is set to announce or tease Overwatch 2 in the next few months, potentially around Overwatch’s anniversary, E3 or Blizzcon later this year. However, it could be that Blizzard has some kind of expansion or new mode planned.
Esports News UK understands Overwatch 2 or the expansion will launch towards the end of this year, between September and November.
We know it’s common for the community to question vague news stories like this, but we’re confident given the sources we’ve spoken to that Overwatch 2 is in the works at the very least.
While it would be unusual to launch a sequel just a year and a half after the original Overwatch, Blizzard and Activision have shown lately they’re open to producing sequels to other continually-developed games, like Destiny 2 and the recent Heroes of the Storm 2.0 huge update.
We heard the rumour from several areas of the games industry, from esports to retail.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
