Overwatch 2 – free-to-play boogaloo – can present a jarring experience for the soldiers, scientists, adventurers, and oddities who’ve cut their teeth in the original. We’ve especially been mourning the absence of loot boxes and the event challenges that reward us with a shiny new skin in exchange for playing and winning an x number of games.

Don’t get us wrong, loot boxes come with a whole host of (predatory) issues of their own, and seeing the “duplicate” sign for the 100th time in a row was no picnic but the move to the free-to-play model has left us with a precious few things to look forward to at the end of a play session. The rush of serotonin that awaited at each new level was replaced by the Battle Pass gauge that almost taunts those who refuse to spend money on premium content, and the absence of medals at the end-of-match screen hit particularly hard.

Jared, the new Executive Producer for Overwatch 2, recently penned a blog post teasing a minor makeover of the current situation. He shares our sentiment that there is room for improvement and speaks of Season 2 which will see the rise of event skins that players can earn by, well, playing. There were a bunch of impressive-looking skins to be earned this way in the Overwatch of yore, so we’re quite hopeful about this little nugget.

Moving on, Season 3 and later should bring some “Battle Pass changes, more interesting Challenges to pursue, and more exciting play-focused progression systems”. This may very well mean a number of things so we’ll have to wait to find out what the player-focused progression systems will entail exactly.

Still, one thing is as sure as a Hanzo critical shot registering even if the arrow was shot a couple of meters off-target: the old system in which you could play and earn in-game currency to get a skin you actually like from the shop is not coming back. It’s a free-to-play model after all and someone has to think of Blizzard’s head honchos and their children.