Following the crossover between Overwatch 2 and One Punch Man, game director Aaron Keller has shared that you can expect another one sometime this year.
With the move to free-to-play, Overwatch 2 has obviously leaned even harder into being a live service game. And what better way to capture some of the success Fortnite has than by collaborating with another brand, obviously resulting in a crossover with One Punch Man. Interestingly, it turns out the team wasn’t entirely certain of doing the collab, but it’s done well, so at least one more is planned for later this year.
“We all loved and appreciated your reaction and excitement for our One-Punch Man collaboration,” wrote Keller in a blog post. “Full transparency, we were a little worried about blending another universe, even one as cool as this, into Overwatch. When we first announced the collab, we talked about our values with how we’d like to handle events like these, and players seemed to agree with us. The popularity of the event has given us the confidence to do more collaborations, and we’re hoping to premiere another large collab later this year.”
It doesn’t feel too surprising that the Overwatch team is taking a slower approach to featuring other properties compared to something like Fortnite, as the latter is a game where the whole point is for it to be constantly evolving. But it definitely marks a different vibe for Overwatch, one that leaves it open to a whole range of collaborations.
A problem Overwatch is still facing, on the other hand, is that players are still finding it unrewarding. In the same post Keller addressed those concerns, noting the ways the team seeks to improve things. “Events now typically have skins that can be earned, and we’ve added Credits to the Battle Pass that allow players to purchase nearly all original OW event skins. On top of that, we’ve substantially increased the amount of XP earned from each match.”
The team is also apparently working on rebuilding the On Fire system in the new engine, and plan to bring changes to Play of the Game to highlight a broader range of game-making plays. Keller also noted that a much bigger Hero and player progression system is being worked on, set to hopefully launch later this year, but didn’t say much more than that.
Last week, Overwatch 2’s vice president Jon Spector announced he was leaving Blizzard, but a replacement hasn’t been announced as of yet.
