For the past six years, Overwatch has casually ignored the world’s most romantic commercial holiday, jumping straight from Lunar New Year into Pachimarchi or the lore-heavy Archives events. This year, however, the team is bringing romance to the game in the form of a dating sim.
That sound you hear in the distance is the excited screaming of Overwatch fans who have been begging for some form of Valentine’s Day content since the game’s inception. As early as 2017, fans were clamoring for the game’s resident archer, Hanzo, to get a Cupid skin. Similarly, the fandom has always begged for Overwatch to capitalize on some of the game’s most iconic possible relationships and interactions.
Loverwatch, a textual dating sim based in the Overwatch 2 universe, will combine both of these when it launches on Feb. 13 as a part of the Ultimate Valentine’s Day event.
Players will have the chance to try and romance either Mercy or Genji in this browser-based game. That concept already ticks a ton of boxes for most of the game’s fans, but might not please the folks who hope Genji and Mercy end up together.
They can put the pitchforks down for now, though, since the dating sim is explicitly labeled as non-canon. For those who are not terminally online, that means the storyline of Loverwatch is just for fun and doesn’t mean anything in the lore context of Overwatch 2.
As a bonus—or perhaps a negative depending on how you look at it—players will be aided by Cupid, who developers say looks “suspiciously like Hanzo.” There’s no way Hanzo, one of the game’s most egregious grumps, handles this without grumbling about romance or the significant lack of defensive armor in his Cupid outfit.
Though Loverwatch’s lore won’t translate to Overwatch 2, its reward will. If players can unlock the secret ending to the dating sim, they’ll be rewarded with an exclusive in-game highlight intro.
The dating sim is part of Overwatch 2’s first Ultimate Valentine’s Day event, which runs from Feb. 14 to Feb. 28. It will include a four-vs-four mode that revolves around Hanzo as well as support-based challenges. Two Epic skins will be up for grabs along with other cosmetics.
Loverwatch can be found at Loverwatch.gg when it launches on Feb. 13 and will be playable until Feb. 28. The dating sim can be played in English, Spanish, Korean, Japanese, French, and German.
