Disappointment Around Overwatch Events Continues Following 10 Year Anniversary

Overwatch uses events as a core aspect of the game’s live-service approach, with many in-game events and even a few in-person events along the way. However, over recent months, a large portion of the Overwatch community and playerbase has become increasingly frustrated with how these events are carried out.

Specifically, there has been a significant difference in events that are available worldwide (to the majority of the playerbase) compared to the events that are exclusive to China. Often, events have been exclusively tied to this region and unavailable to the rest of the world, or drastically different between China and the rest of the world in the content and rewards involved.

This is largely due to a partnership between Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase, in which the latter manages the Chinese version of Overwatch. Because of this, China tends to gain region-exclusive rewards and events, making some of the most popular event hero skins and collectibles impossible for players outside of the region to obtain.

The Overwatch 10 Year Anniversary Event Problem

The most recent case of this is the Overwatch 10 Year Anniversary event. For most players around the world, this event offers a series of special Anniversary loot boxes that include dev-designed sprays, weapon charms, and profile customization cosmetics, as well as recolors of the default skins for each of the Overwatch heroes that were on the launch roster in split purple and white palettes. There’s also a Legendary Tracer skin reward in this same palette, with the bonus of a rainbow glowing RGB effect. This sounds pretty okay, right? Well, yes, until you compare these rewards to the Chinese 10 Year Anniversary event rewards.

Players in China gain 10 Mythic skins, which are arguably both the most expensive and the best skins in the game, due to unique voice sound effects, visual effects, and customization options that let players select their own design aspects and color palette combinations. Overwatch was unavailable in China for two years while Blizzard and NetEase resolved a dispute, so this reward was chosen both as a celebration for the 10-year milestone and as an opportunity for players to catch up on the Mythic skins they missed out on during this two-year timeframe. In addition to this, there are currencies and other Legendary skins available as rewards in the Chinese 10-year Anniversary event, making it significantly ‘better’ in the eyes of global players.

The Overwatch community has not been shy about voicing these concerns and frustrations with Blizzard Entertainment. To put it lightly, there really isn’t any comparing two-color skin recolors from the default hero designs to Mythic skins. At the very least, I personally do feel that to make these skins feel a little bit more special than your typical seasonal recolor, the team could have at least added the soft RGB glow effect that Tracer’s skin has to all of the others. This would have made them stand out as more unique and memorable in the name of the 10 Year Anniversary event.

Feedback From the Dev Team Has Mixed Reactions From the Community

While this has been a recurring problem with the likes of past events or even some crossover collaboration skins only being available in China, and fans around the world have been complaining on Overwatch socials and community forums for a while now, the Anniversary event in particular has driven up a particularly heated debate. So much so, in fact, that Aaron Keller took to social media to inform the playerbase that they have been heard, and that slight tweaks to the 10 Year Anniversary event would be made.

”We also agree that rewards broadly can become more than loot boxes.” Keller acknowledged in his post, indicating that the team may be looking to pivot into a larger variety of exclusive event rewards throughout the rest of the year. Personally, I’d love to see the event challenge skins from Overwatch 1 make a return, where every now and again players have a limited-time window to complete challenges and earn one-off exclusive skin designs. Previous examples from these challenges include the Deadlock Ashe skin, Nano Cola D.Va, and the Roadhog Pachimari skin, just to name a few.

These have continued to be some of the most popular skins to date for these characters due to the exclusivity and nostalgia behind them, but now obtaining them comes down to lootbox luck. Perhaps, in the future, we can see challenge skins return, giving players a two-week chance to obtain them for free via challenges. After that, these new skins could also be added to the loot box pool for players who missed out. But that challenge opportunity is an important part too. For a lot of players, this was a key factor that encouraged them to play consistently - it gave them an exciting collectible to work towards.

While no major overhauls to Overwatch’s 10 Year Anniversary event have been planned, Aaron Keller has stated that weeks two and three will involve increased loot box rewards. The number of community loot boxes is being doubled throughout week 2, and then tripled in week 3. The team is also reducing the number of maximum games that must be won in order to earn all loot box rewards, and adding a new Anniversary loot box in week 3 that guarantees 4 Legendary skins, resulting in a guaranteed 10 Legendary skins through loot boxes during the event

Lastly, Aaron Keller has also stated that when Season 3 rolls around, there will be a new season-long event with an expanded base level of earnable rewards, as well as other ideas in the works for later in the year. Many community members reacted positively to this statement, appreciating the fact that the devs appear to be listening to players and actively trying to make changes. However, there was still another section of the community who found it disappointing that they couldn’t add perhaps some Mythic Prisms - enough to redeem just one Mythic skin in comparison to China’s ten guaranteed Mythic skins.

Following this significant event, it will most certainly be interesting to see how the devs adapt to this situation and refine future events, as the community is most certainly getting fed up. Honestly? As a longtime player of the game, I do understand the frustrations, particularly around skin recolors. I actually rather enjoy the recolors - but not when they’re released as new Shop variants and restricted through microtransactions. My opinion is that Overwatch Shop skins, which can only be purchased with Premium currency, should be exclusive new designs. Recolors, in my opinion, should only be featured occasionally in the Battle Pass and instead be released as options to buy with Overwatch Credits (the free-to-earn currency) inside the Hero Gallery.

After all, there used to be a great catalogue of skins available for purchase via this method in Overwatch 1, but this catalogue has barely expanded, if at all, during the Overwatch 2 - Overwatch: Reign of Talon eras. For many players such as myself, we already have almost all of these skins, which means we are accumulating credits yet have nothing to spend them on. Heck, if the team ever brings back challenge skins, then perhaps these could instead be purchased with credits if missed out on.

Event rewards are definitely a great area to start making improvements for the future of Overwatch, but I would love to see this carry on into improving the rewards and hero skins systems in general. There are many options and avenues the dev team can explore, so I can say with confidence that I, and many other dedicated Overwatch fans, will be eagerly awaiting these changes Aaron Keller has mentioned. Overwatch has made a real effort to improve the game in many ways since the release and competition of Marvel Rivals, and this is simply one more step that can be taken to help the game reach a new high.