Want to buy all the legacy cosmetics in Overwatch 2? The cost will make your eyes water
If you're the sort of player that wants to make sure you have everything from the first Overwatch game in your Overwatch 2 collection, you'd better be prepared to shell out.
It's not been the best of launches for Overwatch 2; whether it was the long queue times, the way people were unable to log into the game, the broken heroes, or the grindy battle pass, Blizzard has been making a lot of news since the game launched earlier this month – and not really for the right reasons.
One of the main sticking points people have had with the game comes down to its implementation of cosmetics; I've already argued there should be a free loot box track on the Battle Pass (similar to the way Apex Legends does it) because I think it'd make you feel like you're actually earning more as you play – even if the rewards are low-value legacy cosmetics.
As it stands, you must earn Overwatch Coins via the completion of weekly gameplay challenges, and you only get a miniscule amount at at time. The quickest way to pick up that Hanzo skin you loved from the first game, say, is to use IRL money – not something everyone wants to do, of course. Enter Reddit user loliscoolyay4me. They have done the math and created a spreadsheet that lists every cosmetic item that's been introduced from Overwatch, and totted up its associated prices in the shop in Overwatch 2. After running the numbers, the user found that the price for every legacy cosmetic available in Overwatch 2 amounts to a mind-boggling $12,080.69.If you wanted to earn all of that via in-game currency earned from weekly challenges, good luck; you'd ned to complete every weekly challenge for nearly 450 years. I hope you're patient.
But hey, at least you don't have to buy everything; there's a battle pass that rewards you with various in-game rewards as you play, and Blizzard even gave away a free Reaper skin and some bonus experience to apologise for that patchy launch period. It's not much, but it's a start, right?
Still, in spite of the cost of the cosmetics and the playerbase's broad reaction to the battle pass, Blizzard has a lot to celebrate. The game has already attracted 25 million players – and that was just within 10 days.
If Blizzard can monetize even a small portion of that audience... well, it'll be laughing for years to come.