Overwatch League skins & sprays are now available in the game according to patch notes posted on the game's official forums.
Overwatch has launched a patch that primarily focuses on adding in-game integration for the Overwatch League which is set to begin its first season tomorrow. The core addition of the patch is an entirely new menu accessed via the Overwatch League button on the main screen. This takes you to a screen where you can see the upcoming matches for the game. Twelve buttons - one for each team - are to the right of the match list. Clicking on these buttons takes you to a submenu where you can purchase team skins for all of the game's 26 characters. The Overwatch League in-game menu isn't just for staring at the shiny new skins - players can watch the games via this menu when they're live. Have a look at the gallery below to see what it all looks like:
[gallery size="medium" link="file" ids="222605,222609,222610,222608,222607,222606"]
League Skins are purchased with League Tokens, a new currency created especially for the League. It takes 100 Tokens to purchase a skin, and tokens run from $4.99 or your regional equivalent for 100 Tokens up to $99.99 for 2,600 tokens (enough to buy an entire team's skins for every hero in the game). Only the Home skins are available for the teams, making for a grand total of 312 new skins added to the game. If for some reason you felt inclined to buy every single one of these new skins, it would cost you just shy of $1,200. Purchasing League Tokens supports the teams in a revenue split with Blizzard, although the details of exactly how the money is split have not been publicly revealed.
Everyone who logs in before February 13, 2018, will receive 100 free Tokens, essentially allowing them to purchase a single skin of their choice. In addition to the free tokens, all players have been given 13 new sprays consisting of the twelve team logos and the Overwatch League logo.
Aside from the hundreds of new skins added to Overwatch, a slew of minor bugfixes have been pushed to the game. Many of these are centered around fixing Doomfist, a character who has been recently plagued with a number of erratic gameplay bugs that made it difficult to achieve consistent results. A new UI feature was also added for Zenyatta, showing the health bar for targets that have his Orb of Discord and Orb of Harmony applied. Click through to the patch notes to read all of the fine details.
As for what we didn't get in this patch, the Blizzard World map (which was added to the PTR in late November of last year) has still not been pushed to the live game. The Mercy & Junkrat tweaks that are currently being tested in the PTR have also not yet been pushed to the live version.
Blizzard launched the Overwatch League app yesterday which lets players keep up with scores and set reminders for upcoming games. You can watch the games via the app or over on Twitch. The inaugural season of the league begins January 10, 2018.
What do you think of the Overwatch League skins added to the game? Do you think the pricing for the skins is reasonable? Let us know in the comments below!