If you’re coming back to Overwatch after a long break, you’ve probably spent hours grinding for legendary skins, cute sprays, and rare voice lines for your favorite heroes. The first question on most returning players’ minds is do skins carry over to Overwatch 2, especially if you dropped hundreds of dollars or hundreds of hours on cosmetics back in the original game. I’ve been playing Overwatch since its 2016 launch, and I went through the migration process myself when Overwatch 2 dropped, so I’ve got first-hand experience with what works, what doesn’t, and what to do if your favorite items go missing. Let’s break down everything you need to know about transferring your cosmetics across games.
Do Skins Carry Over to Overwatch 2? The Short Answer
First, the straight answer for anyone who doesn’t want to dig through all the fine print: 99% of skins and cosmetics from the original Overwatch carry over to Overwatch 2 for free, as long as you link your original account correctly. That applies to every platform you played on too, whether you had the original game on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch. I had a legendary Reaper skin I got from a 2018 Halloween Terror event on my old PS4 account, and it showed up in my Overwatch 2 account within 10 minutes of linking my Battle.net profile.
The only caveat here is that you had to own the original Overwatch, or have access to the account that owned the cosmetics, for them to transfer. If you only played the free trial of the original game, any cosmetics you earned there won’t transfer unless you purchased the full game at some point. You also don’t have to pay any extra fees to transfer your items, even if you’re switching from console to PC or vice versa when you move to Overwatch 2.
Which Cosmetics Don’t Transfer to Overwatch 2?
For the most part, you won’t lose much when you migrate your account, but there are a handful of exceptions to the transfer rule. I ran into one of these myself when I noticed my old Overwatch 1 level borders were gone, so I dug into the official rules to find out what else doesn’t make the jump:
- Unopened Overwatch 1 loot boxes: Blizzard automatically opens all remaining loot boxes for you during migration, so you get all the contents, but you won’t have the boxes themselves to open manually in Overwatch 2. This makes sense, since Overwatch 2 scrapped loot boxes entirely in favor of a battle pass and direct purchase store model.
- OW1-exclusive profile level borders and portrait frames: Overwatch 2 uses a battle pass progression system instead of the original level-based grind, so old profile borders don’t carry over, though you do keep any rare player icons you earned. I was a little sad to lose my level 2000 silver border at first, but the new progression badges in OW2 grew on me pretty quickly.
- Platform-locked cosmetics you don’t link to a Battle.net account: If you had an Xbox-exclusive skin that was tied to an unlinked Xbox profile, you won’t get that skin unless you link that Xbox account to your main Battle.net profile before migrating. This also applies to any promotional skins tied to specific platform subscriptions or events.
That last point is super important if you played across multiple consoles. I had a Switch-exclusive Tracer skin I earned from a Nintendo promotion a few years back, and I almost lost it until I remembered to link my Switch account to my Battle.net profile a week before I migrated. It’s also worth noting that any in-game currency you earned in Overwatch 1 transfers over as Credits that you can spend in the Overwatch 2 in-game store on legacy skins, so you won’t lose that value either.
How to Make Sure All Your Skins Transfer Correctly
Even though the migration process is mostly automated, there are a few steps you can take to avoid losing any of your hard-earned cosmetics. First, make sure all of your platform accounts are linked to the same Battle.net account before you log into Overwatch 2 for the first time. If you log in before linking all your accounts, you might end up with a partial transfer, and you’ll have to go through support to fix it.
Next, if you haven’t logged into your original Overwatch account in more than five years, you’ll want to log into it at least once before migrating, to make sure it’s still active and not flagged for inactivity. You don’t have to re-install the original Overwatch to do this – you can just log into your Battle.net account on the web and confirm that your original purchase and cosmetics are listed under your account transaction history.
If you run into issues where skins are missing after migration, don’t panic right away. In many cases, it can take up to 24 hours for all cosmetics to populate on your account, especially if you have a huge library of items from years of play. I’ve seen friends wait almost 18 hours for their full collection to show up after migration, so give it a full day before you reach out to support. You can also try restarting your game or logging out and back in to speed up the process.
What to Do If Your Skins Are Missing After Migration
If it’s been more than 24 hours and you still don’t see all of your old skins, there are a few steps you can take to recover them. First, double-check that you logged into the correct Battle.net account. It’s really easy to mix up old email addresses, especially if you made your account back in 2016 when the first game launched. I’ve had multiple friends contact support panicking about missing skins, only to realize they logged into a throwaway Battle.net account they used for a different game.
If you’re sure you’re on the right account, next check that all of your platform accounts are properly linked. You can do this through the Battle.net account settings page, under the “Connected Accounts” tab. If any of your old console accounts aren’t listed there, link them now, then restart Overwatch 2 to see if the skins populate. Make sure you don’t have any restrictions on your console account that would prevent it from linking to a third-party service, either.
If that still doesn’t work, you can submit a support ticket through Blizzard’s official support page. Make sure you include as much detail as possible: which skins are missing, what platform you earned them on, and roughly when you earned them. Blizzard support typically responds to these tickets within 3 to 5 business days, and they can manually add missing skins to your account in most cases, as long as you can prove you owned them on your original account. They might ask for proof of purchase or screenshots of your original account to verify ownership, so have those ready if you have them.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to worry about losing years worth of collected cosmetics when you switch to the newer game, because the answer to do skins carry over to Overwatch 2 is almost always yes, as long as you follow the simple account linking steps. The only time you’ll run into issues is if you don’t link your accounts properly, or if you’re trying to transfer items from an unlinked or inactive account. Take 10 minutes to double check your connected accounts before you log into Overwatch 2 for the first time, and you’ll be able to use all your favorite old skins on the new roster of heroes right away.