Overwatch 2 Season 3: Release date, Battle Pass, Mythic skin, changes, and everything new

Overwatch 2's season-based model is continuing with Season 3. Like previous seasons, Season 3 will bring fans a variety of new cosmetic rewards, gameplay offerings, balance changes, and more over the course of its nine-week runtime.

Season 3 is live now, and if you're interested in learning about what it has in store, we've got you covered. Here's a comprehensive overview of everything you need to know about the season, including Battle Pass rewards and details, upcoming new events and skins, official changes and patch notes, and more.

Overwatch 2 Season 3: Release date and launch time

As expected, Overwatch 2 Season 3 went live on February 7, 2023. At this time, Season 2's Year of the Rabbit event ended, and the Season 3 Battle Pass replaced the one from Season 2.

Specifically, Season 3 launched at 12:00 p.m. PT / 3:00 p.m. ET. Historically, this has been the time of day at which Overwatch 2 patches are released, and it's also when the game's weekly resets occur. 

Since Overwatch 2 updates go live at the same time globally, Season 3 begun earlier or later in some regions due to time zone differences. In the table below, we've listed when the patch released in each major time zone.

Overwatch 2 Season 3: Roadmap and events

Previous Overwatch 2 seasons have included both new and returning events, such as Season 1's Junkenstein's Revenge: Wrath of the Bride and Season 2's Winter Wonderland, Battle for Olympus, and Year of the Rabbit celebration of the Lunar New Year. Season 3 will continue that trend with three distinct events that are slated to run at various times throughout its nine-week runtime.

Below, we've listed the name of each of these events, as well as when they're scheduled to be active during Season 3. We've also provided specific details about each event below that so that you have an idea of what to expect from them when they arrive. 

• Ultimate Valentine: February 14 to 28
• Overwatch 2 X One Punch Man: March 7 to April 6
• PachiMarchi: March 21 to April 4

Ultimate Valentine (and the Loverwatch dating sim)

Overwatch 2's brand new Ultimate Valentine event will be live from February 14-28, and will feature a limited time 4v4 Hanzo game mode along with an exclusive Cupid Hanzo skin. Notably, it's also being accompanied by "Loverwatch," a non-canon text-based dating simulator in which fans can choose to romance Genji or Mercy (it will be playable exclusively in web browsers here). Achieving the secret ending of the game will reward players with a special Highlight Intro. Blizzard says that full playthroughs of Loverwatch will take around 30 minutes, and that the minigame will support Korean, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, and English.

Overwatch 2 X One-Punch Man

Overwatch 2's first ever crossover event is here in the form of Overwatch 2 X One-Punch Man, a collab that fans of Blizzard's hero shooter have been asking for for several years. It runs from March 7 to April 6, and will feature a special Saitama skin for Doomfist along with other themed One-Punch Man cosmetics. The event will also have an additional Legendary skin on offer, which will be earnable by completing gameplay challenges. Blizzard says more information about the event's rewards will be revealed in the near future.

PachiMarchi

Overwatch 2 Season 3's third event is PachiMarchi, a returning event from the original game that will run from March 21 to April 4, concurrently with the One-Punch Man crossover. Like the original event, it will feature the hilarious Pachimari Roadhog skin. This time around, though, six PachiMarchi player icons, a weapon charm, and a name card will also be available. A PachiMarchi Roadhog icon will be accessible to everyone that logs in during the event, and fans will also have access to a new limited time mode called Kill Confirmed while it's active.

Overwatch 2 Season 3: Battle Pass skins, rewards, and price

Overwatch 2 Season 3 will offer players a brand new Asian Mythology-themed Battle Pass, complete with 80 unlockable tiers that reward players with skins, emotes, victory poses, voice lines, and a brand new customizable Mythic skin for Kiriko. Like previous seasons, these rewards will be split between Free and Premium tracks, with the Premium Battle Pass costing 1,000 Overwatch Coins, or $10.

New to the Season 3 Battle Pass are unlockable Overwatch Credits, which act as a currency that newer players can use to unlock legacy Overwatch cosmetics. Blizzard has said that 1,500 of these credits will be earnable from each Battle Pass for free-to-play users, while 500 of them will be exclusive to Premium Battle Pass owners. Each legacy Legendary skin will cost 1,500 Overwatch Credits, though less expensive items like voice lines and victory poses can be bought with them as well.

In the tables below, we've listed every reward from all 80 tiers of Overwatch 2's Season 3 Battle Pass. We've also noted whether or not each tier is exclusive to Premium Battle Pass owners.

Season 3 Battle Pass: Tier 1 — Tier 20

Season 3 Battle Pass: Tier 21 — Tier 40

Season 3 Battle Pass: Tier 41 — Tier 60

Season 3 Battle Pass: Tier 61 — Tier 80

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New Mythic skin: Amaterasu Kiriko

The Season 3 Battle Pass' final Tier 80 reward is Amaterasu Kiriko, a Mythic skin based on the Japanese sun goddess of the same name. The default variant of the skin features plenty of gold, yellow, white, and dark brown colors, and also gives Kiriko a snazzy crown and traditional Japanese makeup.

Mythic skins are special in that their colors and styles can be mixed and matched, allowing fans to personalize them extensively. With Amaterasu Kiriko, players can opt for  blue, purple, and bronze or red, white, and lavender color schemes if they don't like the default colors, and can also change Kiriko's hair, makeup, and robes.

Other new Overwatch 2 Season 3 skins

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In addition to the aforementioned Battle Pass skins, there are also be several new skins available in Overwatch 2's microtransaction shop for Zenyatta, Genji, D.Va, Ashe, and Mei. These, just like the skins from the pass, have an Asian Mythology theme. New skins for Sigma, Wrecking Ball, and Mercy are available, too, and these differently-themed cosmetics are spread throughout the shop to offer some variety between the Asian Mythology unlocks. You can view all of these skins in the images above.

Overwatch 2 Season 3: Is there a new hero?

Ahead of Season 3's arrival, many fans were wondering if it will bring a new hero to the game, much like Season 1's Kiriko and Season 2's Ramattra. Unfortunately, Season 3 doesn't have add a new character to play. The reason why this is the case is because Blizzard only plans to add heroes every other season, meaning that since Ramattra released in Season 2, a new playable character isn't expected to arrive until Season 4. 

The developers have confirmed that the back-to-back release of Kiriko and Ramattra was a unique case, and shouldn't be considered the norm. With that said, these "off-seasons" will still feature other types of gameplay content, as Blizzard still wants to ensure that fans have a steady stream of new things to enjoy. Season 3, for example, released with a new map, which we'll go over in the section below.

Overwatch 2 Season 3: New Control map Antarctic Peninsula

The new Antarctic Peninsula Control (King of the Hill) map is now live, bringing the fight to one of the most remote and dangerous locations on Earth. Set in the frozen ruins of an Overwatch research facility and the wreck of the organization's icebreaker ship that failed to rescue Mei and her colleagues, it's one of the most organic and distinctive maps ever created for the game.

Like other Control maps, the level is split into three different stages: Icebreaker, a tighter close-quarters arena set on and around the Overwatch icebreaker vessel; Sublevel, a spacious underground area with lots of verticality and high ground; and the Labs, which seems like a "jack of all trades" point where most heroes can be highly effective if played well. The Labs stage also has a platform located directly above the objective, which is a first for a Control map.

Antarctic Peninsula has extensive connections to Overwatch's lore, including Mei's origin story and "something even more exciting about the story to come." It also contains several humorous easter eggs and interactive elements, including unique hero voice lines, snow that you can "draw" snow angels in, fishing holes you can shoot to make fish flop out, and penguins. For more on the map, check out our full deep dive, which includes several quotes from the developers that worked on the level.

Overwatch 2 Season 3: Patch notes and changes

On top of the addition of earnable Overwatch Credits to seasonal Battle Passes, Season 3 brought several other adjustments to the game. These include Overwatch 2 hero changes, new social features like Streamer Protect, tweaks to Overwatch 2's ranked competitive play systems, and more.

The complete Season 3 patch notes are huge, and many of its changes and additions are relatively minor. Therefore, we're not going to include all of them here. Instead, we'll highlight the most significant adjustments, such as a nerf to Ramattra's Annihilation Ultimate, bug buffs to Reinhardt, a partial rework of Mercy's kit, and more. We have also included Season 3's map pools.

Important hero changes

ALL HEROES

•  Maximum ultimate charge retained when swapping heroes reduced from 30 to 25%

TANK ROLE PASSIVE

• The health totals for all tank heroes will be lower when playing any game mode that does not have a role queue. Health totals will remain the same for tanks when playing any Role Queue enabled game. 

TANK

Orisa

• Augmented Fusion Driver
  • Damage falloff reduced from 25 to 15 meters

Ramattra

• Annihilation
  • Will tick down slower if affecting enemies, rather than lasting permanently
  • A length cap of 20 seconds is being given to the Ultimate

Reinhardt

• Charge
  • Cooldown reduced from 8 to 7 seconds
• Fire Strike
  • Damage increased from 90 to 100
• Earthshatter
  • Direct hit damage reduced from 250 to 170
  • Knockdown duration increased from 2.5 to 2.75 seconds
  • Ultimate cost increased 7%
• Rocket Hammer
  • Knockback impulse reduced from 10 to 6

Wrecking Ball

• Base health decreased from 600 to 450
• Shield health increased from 0 to 150
• Pile Driver
  • Cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds
• Minefield
  • Ultimate cost increased 9%
  • Arming time reduced from 1.5 to 1 second

DAMAGE

Junkrat

• Concussion Mine
  • Maximum damage reduced from 120 to 100

Soldier: 76

• Heavy Pulse Rifle
  • Number of shots to reach maximum recoil increased from 4 to 6
  • Recoil reduced 12%

Sombra

• Machine Pistol
  • Damage per projectile increased from 7 to 7.5
• Hack
  • Health pack hacked duration increased from 30 to 45 seconds

Widowmaker

• Base health reduced from 200 to 175 

SUPPORT

Ana

• Biotic Grenade
  • Effect duration reduced from 4 to 3.5 seconds

Brigitte

• Repair Pack
  • Healing over time reduced from 55 to 50 per second
  • Applying a Repair Pack now instantly heals for 25 health on impact
• Rally
  • Ultimate cost reduced 10%

Mercy

• Guardian Angel
  • Cooldown increased from 1.5 to 2.5 seconds
  • Holding the backwards directional input and canceling the ability with Jump now moves 20% slower
• Caduceus Staff
  • Healing-per-second reduced from 55 to 45
  • Healing is increased by 50% for allies under half health
• Regeneration Passive 
  • "Regeneration" Passive removed
• New Passive: "Sympathetic Recovery"
  • Mercy heals herself for 25% of healing done with the Caduceus Staff

Season 3 map pools

• Push
  • New Queen Street - Morning
  • Colosseo - Morning (NEW)
  • Esperança – Morning
• Hybrid
  • Blizzard World - Morning
  • King's Row - Evening
  • Midtown - Morning
  • Numbani - Morning
  • Paraíso - Morning 
• Escort
  • Dorado - Night
  • Havana - Night (NEW)
  • Junkertown - Morning 
  • Circuit royal – Morning (NEW)
  • Rialto - Morning
  • Shambali Monastery - Night 
•  Control
  • Antarctic Peninsula - Night (NEW MAP)
  • Ilios - Morning
  • Lijiang Tower - Night
  • Nepal - Evening
  • Oasis - Evening

Overwatch 2 Season 3: Trailer

We've embedded the Overwatch 2 Season 3 trailer below, which neatly showcases everything it features.

Overwatch 2 Season 3 is here, and the game as a whole is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. It's arguably one of the best Xbox shooters available, and since it's free-to-play, it doesn't cost anything to check it out. Alternatively, there's the Overwatch 2: Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle that includes the Premium Battle Pass, 20 Battle Pass levels, and 2,000 Overwatch Coins for $30.

Overwatch 2: Ultimate Battle Pass Bundle

The $30 Overwatch 2: Watchpoint Pack offers fans a variety of benefits that will allow them to get guaranteed access to a Premium Battle Pass track, 20 Battle Pass levels, and 2,000 Overwatch Coins.

See at Microsoft | See at Battle.net