Overwatch is making big changes to its battle pass as part of Season 4, with a new multi-track system that even gives players an option to swap out and replace a skin they don’t want.
As explained in a new “Director’s Take” blog post by Overwatch product director Chris McCabe, Blizzard said it recognizes that due to Overwatch’s ever-expanding roster of 50+ heroes, not every battle pass will have rewards for the heroes a particular player is most excited about.
The solution Blizzard is introducing is to not only break the battle pass into smaller chunks so players can more quickly pursue the rewards that interest them the most, but also offer an option to change some of the rewards entirely.
Starting in Season 4, players will be able to, once per premium battle pass purchase, “hack” a legendary skin at the end of a reward track and replace it with a “curated list of past Overwatch shop and loot box skins,” McCabe said.
“So, if you’re a Tank player who’s not interested in the Damage and Support skins in your battle pass, you can use your Tier Hack to swap that Cassidy skin with one you’ll appreciate more,” McCabe said. “Perhaps a Legendary Reinhardt skin with more crayon and duct tape than chrome? Up to you.”
The pool of skins that can be used to replace one from the battle pass will change every season, and will always include skins for heroes across all three of the game’s roles. Season 4 will feature 12 legendary skins as part of the Tier Hack pool to choose from.
This new Tier Hack system will go hand-in-hand with Overwatch’s new “track”-based battle pass. Instead of one, linear, 80-tier list of rewards players need to unlock in order, the battle pass will be divided into six chunks. Players will need to complete a shorter introductory track for each season but can then choose to make progress towards any of the other five reward tracks. What track is active can be changed at any time. After all six tracks are complete, players will progress towards prestige titles and rewards as usual.
Blizzard’s free-to-play hero shooter is hardly the first to employ this type of battle pass system. It’s also been done in other live-service games like Call of Duty, Battlefield 6, and Blizzard’s own Diablo 4, just to name a few, something Blizzard is more than aware of. McCabe said Blizzard isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel, but give players more choice over what rewards to go for first.
Despite the new track system and a UI/UX makeover, Blizzard made clear the number of rewards in the battle pass, and the amount of work required to make progress, isn’t changing.
“Instead, our goal is to give you more control over what rewards you unlock, and in what order,” McCabe said.
Overwatch Season 4 launches August 11, and alongside its battle pass changes, will introduce a new MEKA Tank hero, D.Mon, to the roster. In other Overwatch news, Blizzard announced last season that the game’s newest core game mode, Stadium, would not receive new content going forward. Despite that news, Overwatch seems to be riding high of late overall, with a recent report attributing the shooter’s recent success as a key reason for why Blizzard is now Xbox’s top studio.