A Reddit user by the name of u/Autumn_hi recently made a post on the Overwatch 2 subreddit, wherein they detailed that, with the game’s current progression model, it can take up to five years to unlock all of playable hero Kiriko’s non-seasonal cosmetics.
The calculation wasn’t too complicated — the user added up all the hero’s unlockables and their prices, which reached a total of 15,600 coins, that being Overwatch’s premium currency. Coins can be bought with real money, of course, but they can also be earned through weekly challenges. However, completing all 11 challenges will only net you 60 coins per week.
Therefore, it would take 260 weeks to reach 15,600 coins without paying real money, and 260 weeks roughly translates to five years. Note that this is only for one hero’s non-seasonal cosmetics; Overwatch 2 currently has 35 heroes. These cosmetics include a handful of skins and weapon charms, these being the most expensive of the bunch, but they also include many sprays, voice lines, and emotes, which add a decent chunk to the total 15,600 amount. Were a player to want to get all of these immediately, they’d have to pay approximately $140 USD, as the rate is about five dollars per 500 coins.
Overwatch 2 has been plagued with issues from the moment it launched a few days ago. Merely accessing the game was a struggle in its first few days, as Blizzard confirmed that it was suffering DDoS attacks on its servers. In other words, nefarious actors falsely overloaded the game’s servers, making it nearly impossible for actual players to access the game.
Then, the game received widespread criticism over its requirement of post-paid phone plans. Overwatch 2 requires two-step verification from its players, and the player’s phone plan cannot be prepaid. Developer Blizzard implemented this measure to make it harder for cheaters and bots to create new accounts and potentially harm the experience for real players. However, it unfortunately also prevented certain players from playing the game at all, since many people get their data on a pre-paid basis, as it can be more financially feasible. Overwatch 2 has since removed this requirement for existing players, though new players are still out of luck.
Most recently, a supposed bug that adjusted a player’s keyboard input from the chat to the navigation system resulted in some players accidentally buying skins, because all it takes to purchase a skin is two presses of the spacebar. Other smaller and more subjective issues are being expressed by the Overwatch 2 community, such as underwhelming skins, unrewarding progression systems, and a lack of satisfying player praise, like the removed “on-fire” mechanic.
