cancelation of BlizzCon 2025 feels like another indication that it's all too little, too late. While no online game can sustain the heights of its peak popularity forever, there's no denying that the community around Overwatch 2 in 2025 is nothing like the excitement that surrounded the original Overwatch in its first year or so of release. A well-run Blizzcon event could be one way to assist in reigniting interest, and missing this particular opportunity feels even rougher than sitting it out last year.
By any metric, Overwatch 2 is far from a dead game, with an active community that's managed to out-compete a number of shorter-lived shooters since. At the same time, it's facing a tougher opponent than ever before in Marvel Rivals, a 6v6 hero shooter that's stuck the landing in a way that other would-be Overwatch rivals never did. There's certainly room for both games to exist on the market, but allowing each game to truly flourish is a more complicated endeavor on both ends.
BlizzCon 2025's Cancelation Is Bad News For Overwatch 2
Missing A Major Event For 2 Years In A Row
The good news about this year's lack of a BlizzCon event is that the update has dropped in a more timely manner. The cancelation of BlizzCon 2024 wasn't announced until late April, and although that was still some months ahead of the typical BlizzCon dates, it was a relatively last-minute surprise considering the scale of the event. This year's announcement, shared on the official Blizzard Entertainment X , is over a month more timely, and it focuses on the reassuring news that BlizzCon is officially on for 2026.
Skipping BlizzCon two years in a row isn't a decision that Blizzard would make lightly, so the internal justification for the move is likely thorough. If the company doesn't have a big new title to announce, the event could prove underwhelming, and foregoing it altogether might kill less momentum. Even if it makes sense for the company as a whole, however, it doesn't seem like a favorable decision when it comes to Overwatch 2, a game that could benefit significantly from an in-person BlizzCon event right now.
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Conventions have always been a huge part of Overwatch's popularity. I was thoroughly invested during the game's early days, but even if you weren't, you'd be hard-pressed to attend a pop culture convention and not notice the army of D.Va cosplays. With larger-than-life characters and a charismatic crew of voice actors, conventions opened up opportunities to generate excitement among players and interest among skeptics, helping to break outside the typical FPS market and into an exceptionally broad overall audience.
BlizzCon is targeted more towards the die-hards than the casually interested, but as the degree to which Overwatch 2 is capable of dominating other conventions continues to wane, it's the perfect place to drum up excitement among those who care about the game most. While gaming companies have shifted toward digital reveals over the years, abandoning major events like E3, the value of in-person spaces goes beyond the number of players that can be directly reached. No corporate Twitch broadcast can generate the same energy that a showroom can, and right now, Overwatch 2 needs the latter.
Overwatch 2 Still Needs Momentum Against Marvel Rivals
A Hero Shooter Competitor With A Strong Start
Many of Overwatch 2's recent changes have extended an olive branch to players whom it previously alienated. Although the new 6v6 mode doesn't recapture most of what I liked about the original game, I did at least reinstall it to play the Classic events. I'm just as resistant to spending money on cosmetics, and the reintroduction of loot boxes feels like a way to bring back at least a little of the original game's extensive opportunities for free skins.
The original Overwatch relied on an upfront cost and loot boxes that could be either earned or purchased as the core of its monetization, so the vast majority of its cosmetics could be earned without any financial investment beyond the game itself.
Overwatch 2 committed to its design overhauls for two years before starting to revisit these ideas, though, and hedging steps might not fully please fans of either the original game or the redux. More problematically, some of the changes feel like ineffective counters to the popularity of Marvel Rivals, even if they've been in the works since before Rivals released. Without a permanent Overwatch Classic mode, I'd personally rather stick to Rivals, a game that doesn't just make me wish I could still play the version I used to love.
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BlizzCon 2025, done well, would have been the perfect opportunity to pivot away from the sense that Overwatch 2 is merely putting up defenses against its first lethal competitor. Overwatch 2 needs big, exciting plans that go beyond half-measures and brand collaborations, and laying those out at an event where everyone is primed for an excited response could capitalize on the momentum of the recent changes and keep the game competitive. Nothing is stopping the team from planning a compelling future without a BlizzCon event, but its absence will make it harder to turn promises into ion.
Overwatch 2 Won't Go Away Soon, But Its Legacy Is Struggling
A Long, Slow Descent
I'm sure Overwatch 2 will be around for a while regardless, and as long as people keep buying cosmetics, it shouldn't have any trouble continuing to turn a profit. I'd love to see it have positive word-of-mouth again, though, and that's still not something I'm experiencing outside its dedicated player base. 17 years and many rocky moments later, the defining hero shooter Team Fortress 2 is still discussed with frequent reverence, which isn't the future I'd predict for Overwatch 2 once the same amount of time has ed.
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Maybe Overwatch 2 can keep up its recent momentum in the face of Marvel Rivals even without BlizzCon 2025, and maybe BlizzCon 2026 will have some face-melting reveals. Unless Blizzard was planning on recreating the infamous reveal of Diablo Immortal with a phone-exclusive Overwatch 3, though, skipping BlizzCon for another year feels like a very unfortunate move. Assuming the second set of Le Sserafim skins doesn't magically win over every absent player, I'm taking the cancelation of BlizzCon 2024 as a sign that Overwatch 2's recent efforts won't stop its slow fade from the limelight.
Source: Blizzard Entertainment/X
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