Overwatch 2 is technically free to play, but its security measures aren’t

Overwatch 2 is almost here and many fans of the original game, lapsed or otherwise, are excited to return to its world when the sequel officially releases on Oct. 4. Some of those fans, however, might not be able to make the leap from the original game to the sequel, despite its free-to-play status. And that has nothing to do with the game’s price or even microtransactions, and everything to do with cell phones.

Yesterday, the Overwatch team announced a series of new security measures that will launch with Overwatch 2 on Oct. 4. This includes SMS Protect, a new security measure that will require players to enter and confirm a valid phone number that will connect to their Battle.net account to play the game.