Giuseppe Nelva
This was confirmed by game director Aaron Keller during an AMA on Reddit, clarifying that Overwatch 2 will fully replace the current live service.
Incidentally, during the same AMA Keller also confirmed what we can expect in terms of heroes going forward since the wording in past announcements was a bit vague and open to interpretation.
When OW2 launches on Oct 4th it will be a replacement for the current Live Service.”
When Overwatch 2 releases, it’ll include Sojourn, Junker Queen, and an unannounced support hero. Season 2 on December 6 will include a new tank hero (who according to Keller is “almost finished”) and among the following three heroes, two will be supports.
Overwatch 2 launches on October 4 for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch.
A beta test will start on June 28 and registrations are already open.
We already know that Overwatch 2 will bring several improvements to the formula of the original Overwatch, including a new game mode titled “push”
The game will actually be free-to-play with optional microtransactions, so it should be easy to access. The previously-announced PvE mode will come in 2023, which means that we’ll have to be content with PvP for the time being.
Seasons with new content will launch approximately every nine weeks with the second coming on December 6, 2022, and more following periodically in 2023.