Yes, loot boxes are coming to Overwatch 2

Blizzard Entertainment is bringing loot boxes back to Overwatch 2, more than two years after stripping them out of the game. Loot boxes will return in season 15 of Overwatch 2, which launches Feb. 18, Blizzard announced Wednesday during its Spotlight presentation.

As in the original Overwatch, loot boxes in Overwatch 2 will give players a random assortment of cosmetics (skins, emotes, voice lines, and sprays). This time around, however, “We’re keeping it fun while being transparent about what’s inside and the rate of various drops from opening each box,” said Gavin Winter, senior systems designer on Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2’s loot boxes will be available in the free track of the battle pass and doled out as part of weekly rewards. And while players will be able to earn loot boxes just for playing, Winter said, it sounds like Blizzard has plans to hand out more through Twitch drops and in other, unannounced ways. There will be two types of loot boxes: standard and legendary, with the latter guaranteeing a Legendary-tier cosmetic.

Blizzard’s interface for the new loot box system shows that players will be guaranteed a legendary cosmetic in at least one of every 20 loot boxes they open. There’s also a duplicate-protection system that works to avoid giving you things you already own. According to Blizzard, the system will reroll and give you something of equal value instead of a duplicate. If players do receive an already-owned cosmetic, they’ll earn progress toward receiving another loot box. That would be incredibly rare, Blizzard said, as no Overwatch 2 player owns every single cosmetic in the game. “We checked,” game director Aaron Keller told me.

It sounds like Overwatch 2 players should expect to receive a very large number of loot boxes in season 15, as Blizzard hypes up the return of the randomized loot system. Keller indicated to me in an interview that the number may be in the hundreds as part of Overwatch 2’s big new season.

The return of loot boxes is a big reversal for Blizzard, but it’s a move based on player feedback. Loot boxes in the original Overwatch were controversial with some players, because of their randomized nature and the ability to buy them with real-world money — though players could earn free loot boxes through gameplay and events. But when Blizzard removed loot boxes in 2022, shifting to a battle pass system and a paid in-game shop for cosmetics for Overwatch 2, players were hit by the sticker shock of modern skin pricing. The game’s Legendary skins cost around $20 each, with Mythic skins going for around $40 if purchased with real-world money. Bundles of themed event skins could cost as much as a full-priced game. Those who didn’t want to pay real-world money for skins had an alternative, though: a long, slow accumulation of in-game currencies.

The high, but competitive, prices of Overwatch 2 skins led many players to pine for the olden days, when they’d open a free loot box and be showered with rewards. Those days will soon return, but it’s currently unclear just how rewarding the revitalized system will be. Still, the dopamine hits of seeing the Overwatch loot box slot machine spin again may be enough for now.