It’s been a big day for Overwatch. It appears the game will be an actual purchasable game rather than free-to-play, it’s coming to consoles, and it’s opening up for pre-order. Or… at least it was. Seems all pre-order info has been taken down, and it may have to do with the fine print on the pre-order ad.
There hasn’t been any official release date announcement from Blizzard over the launch of Overwatch. The only confirmation anyone had was that the game was coming in Spring of 2016. Then the Origins Edition of the game was announced alongside PS4 and Xbox One console announcements. Seemed simple enough. Pre-order the game and you get a free bonus skin unlockable for the Noire character. The advertisement page may be seen below, alongside the fine print.
The fine print is the important part, it announces the game will come out on or before June 21st 2016. Two things are fishy about the whole thing. First off, all pre-order info has now been pulled. There’s no sign of it on the Battle.net or Overwatch official pages anymore. Seems strange considering if everything was right, Blizzard would probably be going out of its way to direct me and the rest of the world towards a pre-order announcement page, detail page, and purchase page in the fastest, easiest way possible.
Second off, June 21st is definitely not in the Spring by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe they just have a very flexible definition of the words “on or before.” It’s hard to say exactly what is happening, but if all of this is official and was an actual leak, somebody over in Blizzard advertising may be questioning their job security right about now.
Either way, Overwatch will be coming in Spring of 2016. It remains to be seen whether Blizzard has the power to shift calendar months and put June in that season.
