Blizzard Entertainment have confirmed that the far more generous Overwatch 10th anniversary rewards available to players in China stem from the publisher’s agreement with NetEase, not a deliberate decision to short-change the rest of the world. Overwatch general manager Walter Kong told IGN that NetEase, as the game’s publisher in China, runs its own market-specific activations, which is why players there received 10 free customisable Mythic skins while most global players grind for recoloured loot box skins.
Kong conceded the worldwide celebration missed the mark. As of 22 May 2026, Blizzard have already revised the global event twice following sustained player backlash, doubling and then tripling loot box rewards after game director Aaron Keller pledged action.
What Players in China Receive Compared to the Global Event
The disparity at the centre of the controversy is hard to overstate. To mark a decade of the shooter, Overwatch handed players in China 10 free customisable Mythic skins, the rarest and most elaborate cosmetic tier the game offers. Players across the rest of the world instead work toward recoloured loot box skins, earned by grinding through a run of anniversary loot boxes rather than granted outright.
Mythic skins sit at the top of the Overwatch cosmetic ladder. Each one is customisable, letting players adjust elements of the look rather than equipping a fixed design, and the game normally gates them behind a dedicated Mythic shop track. Receiving 10 of them at no cost is the standout reward of the anniversary, and its absence from the global event is what turned a celebration into a flashpoint.
| Region | 10th Anniversary Reward | How It Is Obtained |
|---|---|---|
| China | 10 customisable Mythic skins | Granted free |
| Rest of the world | Recoloured loot box skins | Earned by grinding anniversary loot boxes |
The global event is built around weekly community loot boxes, with the full anniversary set unlocked by playing matches over the run of the event. That structure is standard for Overwatch’s seasonal celebrations, but pairing a grind-based loot box reward with a no-cost Mythic giveaway in a single region drew an immediate response. Players raised the comparison across social media and Overwatch community forums within hours of the China rewards surfacing, framing the milestone as a two-tier celebration.
China-exclusive events and cosmetics are not new to Overwatch. They have featured ever since Blizzard and NetEase re-entered their publishing agreement in 2024, which restored the official release of Blizzard’s games in the country. The 10th anniversary is the highest-profile case so far, and the first to draw sustained criticism from players in other regions who felt the milestone had been treated as an afterthought outside China.
Kong Points to the NetEase Publishing Structure
Kong, who is also Blizzard’s head of live games and mobile, addressed the gap directly in his IGN interview. He framed the difference as a consequence of how each region is published, rather than a judgement on either player base. “Part of it is related to our partnership structure with NetEase,” Kong said. “NetEase has the responsibility of publishing our game in China, and part of their approach is to do things that are specific to that market.”
That partnership has a complicated recent history. Blizzard’s previous licensing deal with NetEase expired in January 2023, taking Overwatch and the rest of the publisher’s catalogue offline in China for more than a year. During that gap, Chinese players lost access to Overwatch entirely, and the 2024 deal was widely covered as a reset of one of the largest publishing relationships in the region. The fresh agreement brought the games back and handed NetEase responsibility for region-specific content once again, which is the side of the publishing split where the Mythic skin giveaway was decided.
Kong did not defend the global event. “I think we fell short of the mark with this current event,” he said, “but it does mean that as we look forward to future events and activations, we have a very specific view.” The admission is a pointed one for a game in the middle of celebrating its biggest milestone, and it places responsibility for the China rewards with the publishing structure rather than a deliberate Blizzard call to favour one region.
Blizzard Doubled and Tripled the Loot Box Rewards
Blizzard had already moved on the global rewards before Kong’s interview was published. Aaron Keller posted on X on 15 May, telling players that anniversary rewards would be increased and made easier to obtain across the event’s second and third weeks. The studio followed through with a run of changes to the worldwide event.
Looking ahead, we’re also planning an additional season-long event in Season 3 with even more rewards, expanding the base level of earnable rewards in our weekly Play N Games tracker, while working on other ideas for later in the year. 6/8
— Aaron Keller (@aaronkellerOW) May 15, 2026
- Week 2 community loot boxes were doubled
- Week 3 community loot boxes were tripled
- The number of games needed to earn all 15 anniversary loot boxes was cut to 60
The changes target the grind rather than the prize. Doubling and then tripling the community loot boxes increases how many players receive without changing what is inside them, and cutting the match requirement to 60 games shortens the path to the full set of 15 anniversary loot boxes. None of it adds a Mythic skin to the global haul, so the headline gap with China remains, but the revisions ease the slog that drew the loudest complaints.
Acting inside the event window, rather than waiting for it to close, is the part Kong returned to when describing how the team handled the fallout. Blizzard chose to recalibrate a live event mid-run, a decision Kong presented as deliberate speed rather than damage control. The studio framed the moves as listening to the community, though the changes arrived only after players had spent the opening week of the event voicing complaints.
Kong Says He Is Happy With Where Overwatch Is Today
Kong described the response as a planned course correction. “Yeah, I think with the benefit of hindsight, it is something where we had to recalibrate, and we wanted to take action fairly quickly,” he said. Despite the rocky anniversary, he stopped short of any broader apology for the state of the game. “I am happy with where the game is today,” Kong said.
That confidence rests on a busy stretch for the shooter. Overwatch first launched in 2016, and the sequel, Overwatch 2, arrived in 2022 as a free-to-play relaunch that drew criticism of its own. Blizzard have since dropped the Overwatch 2 branding entirely and returned the game to its original Overwatch name. The studio have also added 10 new heroes and moved the game into what they describe as a new, story-driven era, a shift that began when Season 1 launched on 10 February.
The 10th anniversary event sits inside that reset, which is part of why a misfire on the rewards landed as hard as it did. Blizzard are using the anniversary year to argue Overwatch is in a stronger position than its critics allow, and a loot box controversy in the middle of that pitch undercuts the message. Kong’s interview was, in effect, an attempt to keep the wider narrative intact while admitting the specific event went wrong.
What Comes Next for the Anniversary Year
Kong’s “very specific view” now frames whatever Blizzard line up for the rest of the anniversary year. The studio have not detailed the further 10th anniversary events and activations still to come, and have not said whether any global reward will approach the scale of China’s Mythic skin giveaway. The next anniversary activations, whenever they are detailed, will be the first real test of whether that view changes how Blizzard rewards its global player base.