Overwatch 2’s next season is bringing a water-bending hero, some major overhauls to its build-based Stadium mode, and new Perks for every character on the roster. I’m not here to talk about all that. I’m here to talk about the collaboration I could not have fathomed that was teased at the very end of the hero shooter’s latest trailer. Blizzard and Atlus have worked out a deal to put skins based on Persona characters in the hero shooter. What a world we live in.
I do not care for the Fortnite-ification of Overwatch 2, which has become such a core part of Blizzard’s strategy these days, so even though Persona is one of my favorite video game series of all time, I’m not particularly thrilled that this collaboration is happening. That said, I am morbidly curious as to what this collaboration ends up looking like. The brief clip at the end of the trailer shows someone dressed as Joker, the main character of Persona 5, but we only see them depicted as a silhouette, so it’s unclear who is beneath the mask. Could it be Wuyang, the new support hero joining the roster this season? That doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. Beyond the mysterious Joker skin, we don’t know if this is strictly a Persona 5 collaboration or if we’ll see skins based on characters from other games like Persona 3 and 4. Blizzard could throw a real curveball in there and have cosmetics based on characters from the often-forgotten first two games. The teaser does include what seems to be a new Play of the Game animation made to look like Joker’s All-Out Attack victory pose, so it looks like we’ll get more than just skins during the event.
Beyond turning Overwatch into Phantom Thieves, Overwatch 2’s season 18 is adding new modes and characters to Stadium, as well as allowing you to play it in Quickplay rather than just in ranked modes. This way, you won’t have to worry about losing your rank if you have a bad match or two. Stadium is already one of the biggest time sinks in Overwatch 2 and going through an entire game just to lose your rank feels bad, so this is a good alternative. In the main game, every hero is getting at least one new ability-altering Perk they can choose between over the course of a match. Some will be getting more than one new Perk, however, as Blizzard plans to rework more than 50 across all characters.
Lastly, Blizzard released a new animated trailer for Wuyang that gives us more insight into his family dynamics and also might tease that his sister, the fire-wielding Anran, may join the roster at some point down the line.
Season 18 begins on August 26.
