It could take up to five years to complete a single Overwatch 2 hero’s cosmetic collection the free-to-play way.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re probably aware that Overwatch as we know it is no more. Earlier this week, Blizzard’s 2016 multiplayer shooter was swapped out for Overwatch 2. The series has gone free to play and replaced loot boxes with battle passes, paid cosmetics and, as it turns out, a heck of a lot of grinding.
As spotted by The Gamer (opens in new tab), players on the Overwatch subreddit (opens in new tab) have been calculating just how long it would take to get all of the unlocks for Overwatch 2’s newest hero Kiriko without parting with any cash. In place of loot boxes, you now get cosmetics with coins, 60 of which can be earned each week. Obtaining all of Kiriko’s cosmetics will set you back 15,600 coins, which equates to about five whole years (exactly 260 weeks) of grinding. A single 1,900-coin skin would take almost four months to unlock, for reference.
By this time in 2027 – assuming Overwatch 2 doesn’t make economy changes or give out any bonus coins – you’ll have acquired Kiriko’s five skins, three emotes, five weapon charms, two victory poses, nine voice lines, 10 paid sprays, and two highlight intros. Additionally, there are two Twitch drops for Overwatch 2 on offer, which means watching Overwatch 2 streams for a total of 11 hours. The first drops gives you a Legendary Sukajan Kiriko skin, and the second unlocks the Razor Sharp spray and the Donut weapon charm.
Intimidating grinding aside, Overwatch 2 hasn’t had the best of starts due to queue issues and server crashes. Despite Blizzard’s claim that servers are stabilizing, just yesterday players were still struggling to get past the title screen. The company issued an apology the day after the game’s release, saying, “the launch has not met your, or our, expectations.”
In our Overwatch 2 review, we said: “While Overwatch 2 still offers fun and frenetic gameplay on beautifully vibrant maps, it’s hard to ignore how much it deviates from the successes of the original.”
Ease the pain of slow battle pass leveling and coin issues by playing with friends via Overwatch 2 crossplay.