Overwatch League skins available soon in-game

The Overwatch esports team has done a great job making improvements to the viewing experience in anticipation of the Overwatch League preseason opener this Wednesday. One of the keys to making Overwatch watchable is color-coding the teams with hero skins. Like jerseys in other sports, differentiating the teams this way helps even the most casual fan get a better grasp on the action. Each team gets their own custom hero skins based on their team colors, which we’ve been salivating over since the teams were announced. Today in a video, league commissioner Nate Nanzer announced that the fans can finally pretend they’re Sinatraa or CoolMatt because we can buy them too.

With the current uproar across the gaming sphere about randomized lootboxes, Nanzer was super careful to point out that we’ll be able to select which team’s skins we’ll get. No hoping you’ll get Dallas Fuel blue but ending up with two Torbjorn sprays and an Outlaws skin. However, you’ll be purchasing special league tokens with your money rather than buying the skins directly, then using those tokens to buy the skins. No using all those credits you stockpiled from duplicate player icons to buy League gear! Nanzer also said teams would get a cut from the sales, and that we’ll be able to get one skin for free when the skins go live.

However, there were still a ton of unanswered questions, chief among them the question of money. Besides how much each skin will cost the fans, it wasn’t immediately clear exactly how the cash was allocated. Does each team get a cut of general token sales, or do teams only get cash when their skins are purchased? Is it a pool like NFL jersey sales, or do less popular teams get screwed? Also, when will they actually be available in the game? Since we’re counting down the hours until the league launches, I’m guessing we’ll find out soon.