Overwatch 2 leak claims players will be blocked from competitive if they don’t have all heroes

The latest Overwatch 2 leak suggests players will be barred from jumping into the competitive queue if they don’t have every hero at their disposal. This comes days after news revealing all future heroes will be locked in seasonal battle passes rather than freely available to everyone.

A quickly retracted update to the description of Overwatch 2’s Watchpoint Pack accidentally revealed a great deal of information last week. Not only did it confirm Kiriko as the game’s next Support hero, but it also implied the character was tied to the Season 1 battle pass.

With Overwatch Commercial Lead Jon Spector breaking the silence to confirm this leaked intel, he announced all future heroes will be “available on the free track” of any given battle pass. However, for those not wanting to fork out real money to instantly unlock the hero, this free method requires some leg work.

According to the latest leaks, it could take players up to 15 hours to access heroes at Tier 20 of a season’s battle pass. Making matters worse, competitive play will allegedly be disabled until all heroes are unlocked.

“Competitive is locked for the first two weeks of each season,” an anonymous leaker shared on September 10. More specifically, it “requires that you have every hero unlocked in order to play it.”

4Chan Battle Pass leak – take it with a grain of salt from Overwatch

Now this intel isn’t exactly foolproof just yet, so do take the claims with a grain of salt for the time being. But should this post hold true, players may have a bit of work in front of them before they can jump into the competitive ladder in Overwatch 2.

Unless you spend the reported $10 USD upfront to access to Premium Battle Pass, you’ll seemingly be left with just Quick Play and Arcade modes to pick from. Competitive will supposedly only host games with 10 players that all have access to each and every hero in the game.

For Season 1, this may not be much of a hindrance. But should this system remain in effect moving forward, players jumping in a year or two down the line may have a tall mountain to climb.

Once season passes disappear, new heroes will allegedly be unlocked through permanent challengers. For Kiriko, this challenge involves winning 25 matches in Quick Play as a Support, according to the leak.

A year from now, with multiple characters to unlock, players may be looking at dozens of hours of Quick Play before Competitive queues open up.

We’ll have to wait and see exactly how things pan out in the coming weeks as Overwatch 2’s October 4 release draws near.