Blizzard announced the merger in a Reddit AMA on October 4th.
Blizzard revealed last week in a Reddit AMA that when Overwatch 2 releases on October 4th, it will overwrite Overwatch Prime, effectively ending the six-year-old game.
"When OW2 launches on October 4th, it will replace the current live service," game director Aaron Keller wrote.
While the transition will bring a slew of new content — new heroes, new maps, and so on — classic Overwatch will be phased out, as will the 6v6 format.
The news came as a surprise because Overwatch Prime and Overwatch 2 were supposed to coexist.The days of the original Overwatch are numbered.
During the Overwatch 2 panel at BlizzCon 2019, Aaron Keller, the game's current director, and Jeff Kaplan, the former game director who left Blizzard over a year ago, discussed the game's future.
"Our goal is to keep our player base united and to make the transition to Overwatch 2 as smooth as possible."
To that end, when Overwatch 2 launches on October 4th as a free-to-play live service game, it will replace the current Overwatch build.