Overwatch launches $5 Overwatch League team kits

Blizzard's swanky Overwatch League kicks off on Wednesday, with 12 teams representing cities across the globe, and what sport would be complete without flogging expensive merch? Blizzard today launch "jersey" skins, letting Overwatch characters wear your favourite team's clobber for $5 each. Five dollars! If you just like pretty skins, hey, Blizzard are letting all players buy one outfit for free so pick yourself something nice. Just remember: no team colours allowed in pubs on match day.

The Overwatch League's first season will start at 4pm PST tomorrow (that's midnight in the UK) with San Francisco Shock playing Los Angeles Valiant, followed by Shanghai Dragons vs. Los Angeles Gladiators then Dallas Fuel vs. Seoul Dynasty.

Yes, the team names are weird. But good grief, the UK's only team is the London Spitfires, a name almost as shocking as Tracer's accent.

Here, have a look (apols. for the Twitter embed, it’s not on YouTube grumble grumble):

The new team skins are bought with a new microtransaction currency, League Tokens. Blizzard are giving everyone 100 Tokens to get started, which is enough to buy one kit for one character (yes, they're per-character) and would usually cost $5. You've got until February 13th to grab those free points. Some money from skin sales will go to teams, at least, as Dota 2 and some other digital sports have done.

The Overwatch League kits and offer are live, arriving in today's patch. I don't believe they're live in Europe yet, as our patches launch a day late, but I don't own Overwatch to check. [and that's why you're wrong, fool -ed.]

League games will be streamed on Twitch.

Oh goodness me I've just discovered you actually can buy real Overwatch League shirts.