Overwatch 2 May Not Have Loot Boxes
If Overwatch 2 doesn’t have Loot Boxes, that would be a huge change. Buy-to-play games in general, should not have Loot Boxes, so it’s this writer’s hope that this winds up proving true for Overwatch 2. This comes from the knowledge of Overwatch 2’s official rating being revealed. We’ve seen gameplay of it, some visuals of the heroes that will be in the game, and a new game mode, but what about the important stuff? Loot Boxes. According to the German Overwatch 2 Twitter, this may shed some light on the situation. What do we know so far?
Overwatch 2 Rated Ages 12 and Older in Germany:
Overwatch was rated Ages 16+ in Germany, and according to Overwatch 2’s Twitter, it’s officially rated 12+. A recent tweet talked about the changes to Sombra in Overwatch 2, which is really neat. They mentioned hacked targets are visible through walls, hacking doesn’t break camo, chopping cooldown was reduced, and she inflicts more damage on hacked targets, for a start. More interesting is the USK 12 label at the beginning of the video on their Twitter post.
This might not seem like much, but in Germany, games with loot boxes have a higher age rating. This came as a part of the Youth Protection Act. So games with extra microtransactions, like loot boxes must be rated higher, likely 18+. This may not have affected Overwatch, as it came out before this update took place. It may have also escaped this as the original Overwatch was 16+ when it debuted. This is a serious issue in Germany, and games with major microtransactions (such as FIFA) are bundled into this law.
This is not 100% confirmed though. The ESRB “T” rating is for 13+ and did include “Simulated gambling” in the rating. That accounts for the Overwatch Loot Boxes. So there’s truthfully no telling if Overwatch 2 will have Loot Boxes, but it does sound like a possibility. Personally, this writer hopes the days of loot boxes in Overwatch 2. I’m not hopeful, though. There’s too much money to be made in the random boxes of various, subpar loot. More likely, if the loot boxes don’t exist, we’ll probably have Battle Passes to look forward to. That would definitely explain the rating change.
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