Overwatch 2: Release date still a mystery following Q2 earnings call

Overwatch fans tuning into the Activision Blizzard Q2 2021 earnings call in hopes of hearing a release date for the highly anticipated sequel were instead given a vague status update on the game’s development. The good news is, it sounds like Overwatch 2’s development is moving along nicely. The bad news is we still have no idea when it will actually release.

Here’s what Activision Blizzard President and COO Daniel Alegre said about the progress of Overwatch 2:

"The extended Overwatch team is similarly making strong progress on Overwatch 2 with development passing an important internal milestone and recently, after great response to the recent community update, the team is looking forward to revealing more of the game in the coming months as they approach the later stages of production."

Admittedly, I’m not sure what this key internal milestone is but the fact that Blizzard is approaching the “later stages of production” in the coming months leads me to believe we’re unlikely to see Overwatch 2 launch this year. This is pretty much what we’ve expected all along, so there’s no real surprise here.

In Activision’s Q4 2020 earnings call, the developer made it seem like the game wouldn’t be shipped until 2022 at the earliest. And Alegre’s comments seem to heavily suggest this will be the case.

Overwatch 2 was first announced at BlizzCon 2019. The highly anticipated sequel builds on the competitive team-based shooter, by introducing even more PvE content, including cooperative missions that expand up on the world and story. This PvE content comes in the form of Story Missions as well as highly replayable Hero Missions.