Update: It's official! Overwatch is coming to the Nintendo Switch on October 15th - with three months of Nintendo Switch Online.
Original article follows.
In what must be the worst-kept secret for upcoming games on the Nintendo Switch, even more evidence has leaked that Blizzard will be porting Overwatch over later this year in October. The first obvious sign pointing to a port of the popular team-based hero shooter came only recently when an Amazon page briefly showed off an official Overwatch case for the console, leading everyone to believe that it was only a matter of time before the official announcement.
Today, a European retail leak states that the game will launch formally on October 18, and possibly October 15 for North America. While the leak is certainly exciting news, it comes right before the next Nintendo Direct, which is slated to be a 40-minute presentation focusing on games set to release this year.
Overwatch first launched in May of 2016 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Although there is general excitement on forums about the possibility of the Switch receiving a port of the game, many are also wondering about the viability of such a project without the implementation of cross-play between other platforms. Online games in any community live and die by their player base, and it seems like a stretch to imagine that many players will make the transition over to the Nintendo Switch in large enough numbers to sustain reasonably low wait times for matchmaking.
In addition, it would be an even harder transition over to the Switch without all the cosmetic rewards that players may have on any of the other platforms. Sadly, and strangely, Blizzard has not implemented any manner of sharing progress on accounts despite the feature being highly requested ever since the launch of the game. Will not having access to years worth of earned skins turn off all players? Probably not, but it will certainly keep some players away, and as mentioned, online games on the Switch often need all the incentive they can get to keep players involved in the game.
In any case, the overall notion of seeing Overwatch on the Switch is exciting, nonetheless. It would simply be a bit more reassuring if there were some manner of cross-play, or at least planned for the future, to ensure one does not purchase a game that has too small an online player base shortly after launch.
Source: Kotaku.com