Overwatch 2 Leaves Early Access with Season 6

Overwatch 2 launched in Early Access nearly a year ago. While they’ve routinely added new heroes, the plans for the full release were to occur when the PvE parts were ready. Throwing a permanent wrench into those plans was the cancelation of the PvE aspect and its replacement with multiple paid story missions. With season 6 bringing a wealth of changes and new content, including story missions, the PvP shooter has finally left Early Access.

The sixth season is mostly being headlined by the new story missions and the new support hero, Illari. Three new PvE Co-Op story missions have been added, taking place in Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, and Gothenburg. These are all following a story of Null Sector attacking the world, the primary reason for the Invasion subtitle that this season has.

Illari is the next hero to be added to Overwatch 2 and is the third support hero to join the sequel’s roster. She uses solar-powered items to both heal teammates and damage enemies. This is most reflected in her Solar Rifle weapon, with the primary fire dealing damage and the secondary fire healing. Extra healing can be provided through Healing Puyulons while her Outburst Jump adds some nice mobility. Captive Sun is the name of her ultimate and it both deals damage and slows them down.

Moving onto content that’s immediately available and free for everyone, we have Underworld. This limited-time takes place on King’s Row and challenges players with stopping Null Sector. It’s set to run from now until September 5th, with each week bringing new changes.

A new game mode called Flashpoint has also been added for the new season. This mode is only supported by two new maps, New Junk City and Suravasa, but they’re also the biggest maps released so far. Functioning similarly to Control but with a quicker capture rate, both teams will fight over one “flashpoint” at a time. Once it’s been captured, another will open on the map. The first team to capture three flashpoints wins.

Rounding out the big changes is Hero Mastery. This new Player Progression system will track progress for specific heroes, providing special badges and rewards for players to collect. It’s expected to be added on September 5th.

Naturally, there’s also a whole new battle pass being added as well. This season’s mythic is a Null Sector-themed skin for Ana, which admittedly does look pretty cool. The community response hasn’t been great to the season thus far, mainly in response to how the story missions are handled and their length. This new season also marks the game’s debut on Steam, which hasn’t been met with great reviews. We’ll have to see if player outlook changes as the season goes on.