Loot boxes are out and the Overwatch 2 battle pass is in TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Loot boxes are out and the Overwatch 2 battle pass is in By Rhys Wood published 16 June 2022 Earn your stripes (Image credit: Blizzard) Audio player loading… Overwatch 2 battle pass details are finally here, as loot boxes are ditched in favor of a rotating strip of rewards players can earn through a much more streamlined progression system. Overwatch 2 battle passes are being treated as seasonal content. After nine weeks, the current battle pass will be phased out for a new one. When it launches in early access on October 4 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series XS, the free-to-play game will enter Season 1 and have a battle pass ready to go on day one. The Overwatch 2 battle pass isn't all that dissimilar to other popular free-to-play games' implementation of the reward structure. Like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone, the battle pass has both free and premium tracks. The latter of which you'll need to pay real money to access. At a glance, the battle pass features rewards that would otherwise have been a part of the first Overwatch's loot box system, with new cosmetic additions like gun charms too. Such rewards include character skins (with over 30 new ones coming with season 1), weapon charms, and voice lines. Currently, though, there's no word as to whether previous seasons' battle passes will return at a later date. Loot boxes, however, have been scrapped for good. As such, there could be an element of FOMO at play if you didn't manage to fully complete a battle pass from any given season. (Image credit: Blizzard) A bumper start for Overwatch 2 By the looks of it, Overwatch 2 could have quite a feature-rich start when it launches in October. Three new heroes are joining the complete roster from the first game. These new Overwatch 2 characters are Sojourn, Junker Queen alongside a third mystery support hero. Joining them are six new maps, an all-new mode and the aforementioned battle pass content. And while we've yet to receive pricing information for Overwatch 2's premium content, we like to imagine that the overall cost will be lower. That's due to the battle passes being a one-time purchase every nine weeks. As a result, players will need to play to progress and earn the rewards as they go, as opposed to potentially risking hard-earned cash on duplicates with the first game's loot box system. And there's also been a revelation about how Overwatch 2 PvE will work and it may surprise you!Check out our list of the best free-to-play Steam games Rhys WoodHardware WriterRhys is Hardware Writer for TechRadar Gaming, and while relatively fresh to the role, he's been writing in a professional capacity for years. A Media, Writing and Production graduate, Rhys has prior experience creating written content for app developers, IT firms, toy sellers and the main TechRadar site. His true passions, though, lie in video games, TV, audio and home entertainment. When Rhys isn't on the clock, you'll usually find him logged into Final Fantasy 14, Halo Infinite or Sea of Thieves. See more Gaming news TechRadar Newsletter Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. MOST POPULARMOST SHARED1You may not have to sell a body part to afford the Nvidia RTX 4090 after all2One of the world's most popular programming languages is coming to Linux3The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me4Blizzard made me explain Overwatch 2 smurfing to my mum for nothing5Apple October launches: the new devices we might see this month1Best laptops for designers and coders 2The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me3Stop saying Mario doesn't have an accent in The Super Mario Bros. Movie4Microsoft Teams users are using it for a really bad reason, so stop now5iPhone 15 tipped to come with an upgraded 5G chip Technology Magazines (opens in new tab)● (opens in new tab)The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviewsFrom$12.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)