Here’s how to level up your battle pass in Overwatch 2

The battle pass is one of the biggest and most obvious additions to Overwatch 2. It’s not only the chief way to gain cosmetics for your characters and account — replacing the oft-maligned loot boxes — but it’s also the way to unlock any new heroes Blizzard adds to the game.

The battle pass offers both a free and premium track, and you can earn the new hero (Kiriko, a support, is Season 1’s hero) on either. With a premium battle pass ($9.99), you’ll instantly unlock Kiriko and gain a permanent 20% boost to all battle pass experience. However, to get Kiriko for free, you’ll need to level up your battle pass 55 times.

Each tier of the battle pass tier requires 10,000 experience to level up, so you’ll need to cumulatively earn 550,000 experience if you want to unlock Kiriko. To get Cyber Demo, the extremely cool and customizable Genji Mythic Skin, you’ll need to hit Tier 80 on the battle pass, which will take 800,000 battle pass experience. Talk about a grind.

In this Overwatch 2 guide, we’ll teach you how to gain XP for your battle pass and offer some tips on how to maximize your time in the game.

Daily Challenges

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The Daily Challenge is a quick and easy way to get (almost) a level every day. Instead of giving XP for completing individual challenges — as with the Weekly, Seasonal, or Lifetime Challenges you’ll learn about below — you’ll simply gain 3,000 XP each for the first three Challenges you complete in a day. This is a relatively easy feat if you’re willing to play a few matches in your session.

Here are some examples of Daily Challenges in Overwatch 2:

• Win your first game of the day
• Play three matches in a specific playlist
• Deal 5,000 damage with abilities (Mayhem mode doesn’t count)

These Challenges rotate out every 24 hours, as you might expect, and will be slightly different each day.

Weekly Challenges

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The Weekly Challenges in Overwatch 2 are far more robust than their daily companions, and give 5,000 XP a pop. There are 11 Weekly Challenges each week, meaning you can gain a total of 55,000 XP any week, allowing you to level up five and a half tiers. However, these Challenges are a lot more work and will require a bit more focus on your part than the dailies.

Here are some examples of Weekly Challenges in Overwatch 2:

• Win 10 games
• Deal or boost a total of 125,000 damage
• Complete seven games as heroes not in your top 3 most played

Like the Daily Challenges, you’ll get a bonus for completing a certain number. However, instead of XP, you’ll get Coins, which you can use to purchase cosmetics and other items. You’ll get 30 Coins for completing four Weekly Challenges, 20 for completing eight, and 10 for completing all 11.

Seasonal Challenges

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The Seasonal Challenges are more numerous than the Daily and Weekly Challenges, although they don’t give nearly as much XP. As the name suggests, these are Challenges that last the entire season, which is usually a couple of months.

Once you’ve completed a challenge, it won’t come back, so if you focus on completing Seasonal Challenges early, you can quickly power through the early levels of your battle pass. These Challenges typically give only 500 or 1,000 battle pass XP, but a select few give 3,000 or even 5,000.

Here are some examples of Seasonal Challenges in Overwatch 2:

• Win three games in Colosseo (map)
• Earn five kills with Sojourn’s alternate fire
• Win 50 games in any Competitive mode

Lifetime Challenges

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These Challenges are extremely minor and will only help you out once, as they persist over the entire lifetime of your account. These Challenges primarily reward icons and titles, rather than battle pass XP. However, the few that do give battle pass XP only give about 500.

Here are some examples of Lifetime Challenges that give battle pass XP in Overwatch 2:

• Win a team deathmatch game
• Win a duel game
• Win a game as a support hero

Match completion

Outside of challenges, you’ll gain a pittance of battle pass XP just for completing matches — as we mentioned before. You’ll get only 100 XP for completing a match. If you complete multiple matches in a session, you’ll get a bonus 100 XP. And, if you win your match, you’ll get 150 bonus XP. In ideal conditions, where you’re on a long streak, and you’re winning, you can earn 350 XP per match.

Not terrible, but certainly not great either. With these numbers, you won’t be able to reach the higher echelons of the battle pass purely by completing matches. You need to focus on Challenges. Consider the XP you get for match completion as a nice little bonus.

Tips for leveling up your battle pass

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Unfortunately, Blizzard has designed the Overwatch 2 battle pass such that it encourages play time over than skill expression. A more skilled player will be able to complete the Challenges faster, sure, but there are only so many Challenges that can be completed in a given game session.

So, the most useful advice we can give you is this: Play Overwatch 2 multiple days a week — especially if you want to get some of the rewards deeper into the battle pass. When you log in each day, check the Daily Challenges and pick three to focus on. Then take a look at what Weekly Challenges you’ve already made progress on, and which you need to focus more on. You should try to complete all 11 Weekly Challenges in a given week if possible.

The final piece of advice we have is to consider logging off once you’ve cleared all of your Daily and Weekly Challenges — at least if you’re only playing to unlock more of your battle pass — and waiting for the list next day. You’ll need perseverance to get to the end of the battle pass, and the tiny match bonus XP isn’t worth burning yourself out over.