Blizzard is hinting at a pretty massive change to its monetization model, with executive producer Jared Neuss saying on a recent podcast that the "goal" is to make all new heroes free for everyone at the start of new seasons.
Currently, Overwatch 2 sells a premium battle pass that lets players instantly unlock a season's new hero (provided there is one that season, of course), leaving folks opting for the free version of the battle pass to to grind their way through the tiers necessary to unlock the new hero. However, in an interview with SVB's Group Up! podcast, Neuss strongly suggested that's all about to change, but stopped short of providing any specifics.
"Would I like for every single player to be able to experience a hero the day that a season drops? Yes," he said. "Do I think that we will get there. Yes, I do think that we will get there and we're actively working towards it. right now. Can I talk about the details? No, I can't."
Neuss was responding to a question from the podcast host about the perception of pay-to-win in Overwatch 2's current monetization model, which locks new heroes behind the paid battle pass and makes that hero's unique meta and potential ability to hard counter other heroes unavailable to the game's full player base until they can work through the required tiers.
"We're making sure that we're balancing that, like, we're free to play, with fairness, so it's like, yes, obviously you can earn every hero, you don't have to buy them, but like you said, there's this period of time then where, does a team have a competitive advantage? That's one of the reasons we want to change our model going forward."
It's interesting that Neuss is not only openly talking about such a big change to Overwatch 2's monetization model, but potentially also hinting at broader changes to the model. Again, he doesn't get into any specifics beyond this change to the release of new heroes, but it definitely sounds like there's a bigger conversation around monetization happening behind the scenes that we'll likely see play out in future seasons.
