Blizzard has officially announced that "Overwatch" will be taken offline on Oct. 2, just before the release of "Overwatch 2." One notable feature of the new iteration of the game is the addition of the Battle Pass, which will require grinding enough game time and possibly game credits to unlock new characters.

Overwatch's free-to-play sequel is about to take over the sci-fi shooter game. With only news releases about the changes to come, the player base is divided about Blizzard's strategy to launching new elements of the game's competitive mode.

According to an IGN report, "Overwatch 2" revealed that in order to unlock the entire cast of original Overwatch characters, new players would have to grind out about 100 matches. Currently, there are no match requirements or battle pass gates, and players have access to the entire character pool.

Characters Playable After 100 Matches

To onboard new players more gradually, a limited selection of game modes, heroes, and other restrictions are available to them at first. This is what Blizzard has in store to safeguard the fairness of gameplay and encourage decent conduct in the game.

Read Also: Apple CEO Tim Cook Says Tech Industry Lacks Women; All-Female Foundations Program Launched in the UK

The second phase of the new user experience gradually unlocks all of the original Overwatch heroes over the course of about 100 matches, while the first phase quickly unlocks all game modes and in-game chat. This is shared by a recent blog post from Overwatch.

The updated gameplay simplifies the course of the game for new players so that they are not introduced to complex features before being immersed in the game's basic mechanics. As per the same IGN report, this is undoubtedly a comprehensible and organized way to begin the game because each hero has a distinct set of abilities and counters that sometimes spoils players of the fun of discovering 'strategies themselves.

The updated user experience is known as the Defense Matrix, which includes several important new features in addition to a character unlock progression.

Beats From the Overwatch Crowd

Many players have taken their feelings about the major shift online. Some argue that this move is simply intended to help new players better understand the game before they are exposed to the full game, particularly its competitive mode.

Players can test out nearly 32 heroes and play 100 games, to put things in perspective. A Reddit user explains that a new hero can be introduced in the new game mechanics every three matches. This upcoming feature could improve gameplay for brand-new players.

Overwatch 2's free-to-play mechanics also have the potential to end the user base's problem with account smurfing; 100 games is a large number of games, and it's difficult to imagine players attempting to duplicate the entire process.

Players will now be less likely to match with teammates acting disruptively, thanks to the new SMS Protect feature, which helps verify ownership of an account in the unlikely event of an account restriction.

Related Article: 'Overwatch' Cross-Play Faces Error in Different Regions, Will There be a Fix?