How to unlock all the Overwatch 2 heroes, including Kiriko

Overwatch 2 is essentially a relaunch of Blizzard’s 2016 hero shooter, complete with all the same heroes, skins, and even maps that you remember.

However, Blizzard has introduced some major changes to the game’s economy, removing loot boxes in favor of a more modern battle pass system. Perhaps the biggest change in the sequel is that not all of the heroes are immediately available on new accounts and must instead be unlocked or earned through the battle pass.

If you’re a veteran Overwatch player, don’t worry: Players of the original Overwatch will start with access to everyone but the newest hero (Kiriko) in Overwatch 2. That said, if you missed the boat with the first game and are finally jumping in to see what all the fuss is about, you’ll only start with a small group of heroes, and will need to unlock the rest by playing the game.

In this Overwatch 2 guide, we’ll show you how to unlock all the Overwatch heroes if you’re new, and how to pick up the latest characters — Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko — regardless of how much of the first Overwatch you played.

If you’re an Overwatch veteran, the first two sections of this guide won’t mean much for you, so go ahead and skip down to the sections on Sojourn, Junker Queen, and Kiriko.

Starter characters

As a new player to Overwatch 2, the first thing the game will do is throw you into the tutorial, where it’ll teach you the ropes and have you switch between a few different heroes. But once you’re done and you’re ready to jump into a match with real humans, you’ll find that you only have access to 13 of the game’s 35 heroes.

This is not some kind of bizarre account issue, and is instead an effort on Blizzard’s part to make the game more welcoming to new players (such as yourself). While the roster is pretty limited, there are enough heroes here that you won’t ever be boxed out by other players.

Here is the complete list of starter heroes for new players in Overwatch 2:

Tanks

• Orisa
• Reinhardt
• Winston
• Zarya

Damage

• Reaper
• Soldier 76
• Torbjorn
• Tracer
• Widowmaker
• Pharah

Support

• Lucio
• Moira
• Mercy

How to unlock the rest of the roster

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

The starter roster includes some pretty cool and simple characters, but unlocking the rest of the heroes you see on the box art and the menu screen is a different story. You’ll need to complete Blizzard’s new hero challenges, of course.

In the challenge menu, under the hero heading, you’ll see 19 challenges waiting for you. However, the term “challenge” here is a bit of a misnomer. You don’t need to rank up to a certain level or get a team wipe with Pharah or anything like that. You just need to play games.

Each locked hero has a number of games played associated with them, and once you hit that threshold, you’ll unlock the hero. You’ll unlock the first few heroes over the course of your first four matches, and then the requirements skyrocket pretty quickly, going from nine matches at the start all the way to 150 on the top end.

The good news is that these later heroes (all of them after Ana) count winning matches as two. So if you’re a natural at Overwatch 2, you’ll only need to complete around 75 games for Echo, rather than the entire 150.

Below, we’ve listed out the entire roster of locked characters, and what you’ll need to do to get each of them in Overwatch 2:

How to unlock Sojourn and Junker Queen

Image: Blizzard Entertainment

Veteran players will instantly gain access to Sojourn and Junker Queen — the game’s new damage and tank characters respectively — when logging into Overwatch 2. They’ll both just appear in your roster and you can play them in your first matches of the new game if you’d like.

Newcomers will actually have a similar experience with Sojourn and Junker Queen, although there are some minor hoops to jump through first. After completing the tutorial, you’ll need to jump into a few quick play matches to unlock the other game modes. Once you have access to these other modes, you’ll also gain access to Sojourn and Junker Queen.

What about Kiriko?

Kiriko is the series’ latest hero and is locked behind the new battle pass system by one of two walls: a pay wall or a grind wall.

If you purchase the battle pass’ premium track (1,000 Overwatch Coins, which is $9.99) you’ll gain access to Kiriko immediately — and get a handful of cosmetic goodies.

If you want to remain a free-to-play player, you’ll also be able to pick up the new hero, but it’s going to take some serious playtime. You’ll unlock Kiriko at free tier 55 (the max is 80) in the battle pass. If you take this free avenue for the new character, know that it’s going to take you some time.

Even with the battle pass unlocked (which comes with a permanent 20% XP bonus), we only managed to level up our battle pass a handful of times after a few hours of play.