'Overwatch' Won't Get Its Most Exciting New Feature In Years Until Next Season

If you were anticipating the imminent addition of Unvaulted battle passes to Overwatch, you'll need to wait a little bit longer. Previously slated to arrive as part of Season 4's midcycle update, they now won't come to the hero shooter until the start of Season 5.

Why were Unvaulted Passes delayed?

Overwatch director Aaron Keller confirmed the delay of the Unvaulted Passes in a Sept. 4 blog post, claiming that the system needs more time in QA so it doesn't have a bug-riddled launch.

"We've decided to push Unvaulting to the start of Season 5 [to] give our amazing QA team extra time to test it as thoroughly as possible," he explained. "No one likes bugs, and we want to do everything we can to ensure this long-desired feature is as bug free as possible when finally available to you all."

Battle passes built around FOMO were popularized by Fortnite, and Overwatch's have worked that way since 2022. Recently, more live-service games have eased the time restrictions around when players can earn the battle pass rewards they paid for. Overwatch competitor Marvel Rivals is one of the most prominent examples, as once you buy one of its battle passes, it never expires.

Image: Blizzard Entertainment via Polygon

Blizzard confirmed that Unvaulted Passes were coming to Overwatch in August. While some older forms of currency and mythic skins won't carry over to these new passes, it'll give players an easy way to obtain emotes, sprays, and other battle pass cosmetics that they missed out on.

We still don't know the minutiae of how exactly buying and progressing your way through Unvaulted Passes in Overwatch will work yet. Thankfully, Keller teased in his post about the delay that Blizzard will "have more details on how they’ll fully work ahead of Season 5."

Overwatch Season 5 is expected to begin on Oct. 6. We'll likely learn more about its other new additions at BlizzCon 2026 next weekend.