Divide And Conquer: How To Efficiently Tackle Overwatch 2’s Season 1 Challenges

The first season of Overwatch 2 is underway, and if you can pull yourself away from all the drama, the clock is ticking on hitting all of your season challenges. While dailies and weeklies reset at their appropriate times, season-based challenges only come around once, so you don’t want to sleep on them.

With 41 challenges and a narrow window of time to get to them all, it can be hard to keep track of everything. This guide will help you sort the challenges to make better sense of them. It will also call out a few helpful tips to help you maintain your sanity as you grind your way through the season.

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Season Challenges 101

It is totally possible to jump into match after match of Overwatch 2 and complete many challenges just by going through different maps, rotating heroes, and playing your best to achieve progress toward the challenges that require wins. That said, you’ve got a limited number of days to get through all of these. So, here are a few things to keep in mind if you want to optimise your time.

You must play 50 (yes, 50) unranked games before you can even touch competitive challenges. Sure, you can knock out a good chunk of the challenges in just about any mode except for Player vs. AI and Custom Games, but some require being in competitive games, and those are gonna task you with grinding it out in the unranked mode. We all gotta do it, so if you’re ready to take on other players, jump into some unranked and start making progress toward that goal.

Use the in-game filter to track your progress. Overwatch 2 has a super-handy feature that lets you filter your challenges based on All Challenges, In Progress, Not Started, and Completed. Navigate to your challenges page, and under each tab (broken up into Daily, Weekly, Season, Competitive, Lifetime, and Hero) use the filter to help you figure out which ones you’ve made the most progress toward.

Remember that 50-game requirement for competitive games? That’s a challenge on its own, “Competitive Play Qualification,” and you can check the progress in the “Competitive” tab. If you’ve played a few unranked games, selecting “In Progress” from the filter drop-down will highlight just the challenges you’ve progressed toward. Try it out on the Season tab to see how many challenges you’ve already made progress in. Best practice: Filter through your “In Progress” challenges every time you fire up a new session. This will help you keep those remaining, nearly-there challenges at the front of your mind, saving you from the inevitable “oh, frak, I forgot I was nearly finished with Sojourn’s ‘Railgun Mastery’ challenge!”

And if you forgot to check your in-progress challenges before getting into a game, you can access the full challenge menu, filters and everything, during a game.

At 10,000 XP per level in the Season Pass, the season challenges alone won’t knock out the whole pass. They will get you through about three levels, but unlike other challenges, these will expire at the end of the season. For you Premium Season Pass holders, you’ll net an extra 20% XP per match. You’ll also gain 100 XP for every match you play, with an additional 100 for consecutive matches.

There are 41 season challenges for season one. They’re laid out in a giant scrollable list, but I’ve broken them down into four broad categories based on similarities across them. This should help you narrow your focus a bit.

”As Hero” season challenges

“As Hero” challenges are any challenge that ask you to do X thing as a certain Hero. For these, you’ll need to be playing as the Hero mentioned in the challenge. (These are distinct from Hero challenges that unlock new playable characters, which can be found in their exclusive tab.)

Some of these can be quite tricky, so you may want to put in some rounds in PvE if you’re learning a hero for the first time. And if you’re taking on a hero challenge, try not to neglect your team!

Note: As of the time of this writing, bugs have rendered Bastion unplayable so his challenges,and any requiring his presence on the battlefield, are equally impossible.

Read More: Overwatch 2 Is Buggier Than Blizzard Is Admitting [Update: Entire Characters Pulled ATM]

There are 11 seasonal, “as Hero” challenges in total.

• Never Saw It Coming: Damage a hero with the return flight of your knife as Junker Queen. (500 XP)
• Railgun Mastery: Earn five eliminations with your alternate fire as Sojourn. (500 XP)
• Tankbuster: break a barrier five times while in Configuration: Assault as Bastion. (500 XP)
• Hook, Line, And Sinker: Hook an enemy during your ultimate as Roadhog. (500 XP)
• Never Skip Leg Day: Get an environmental kill with Snap Kick as Zenyatta. (500 XP)
• Literal Wall Hacks: Heal an injured ally after using Swift Step through a wall in five games as Kiriko. (500)
• Javelin Mastery: Pin five enemies into a wall with Energy Javelin as Orisa. (500 XP)
• One-Two Punch: Rocket Punch an enemy after leaping into them Seismic Slam in five games as Doomfist. (500 XP)
• In For A Shock: Deal 1,000 damage with your secondary fire as Winston. (500 XP)
• Wombo Combo: Eliminate three enemies with both Shield Bash and Whip Flai as Brigitte. (50 XP0)
• No, No, No! Yes, Yes, Yes!: Use Charge to get an environmental kill without falling to your own death too as Reinhardt. (500 XP)

Situational season challenges

Some seasonal challenges require you to team up with the right Hero at the right time. Others task you with seizing the moment, looking for a specific opposing team’s opening, or denying an enemy a certain kind of elimination. I like to refer to these as “situational challenges.”

While you can team up with friends to more predictably score on the collaborative challenges, the other ones require you to keep an eye out for who’s on the enemy team. Take a look at who’s on the enemy roster and identify which challenge you can most likely accomplish in that match.

There are 13 “Situational” season challenges.

• I Make My Own Fate: Escape Orisa’s Ultimate. (500 XP)
• Divine Protection: Stay alive for five seconds after being cleansed by Kiriko’s Protection Suzu. (500 XP)
• Ancestral Empowerment: Earn five eliminations while buffed by Kirko’s ultimate. (500 XP)
• Cease Your Resistance: Earn five eliminations on enemies affected by any of Orisa’s abilities or ultimate. (500 XP)
• Finish Them!!: Eliminate an enemy hero immediately after they’ve been punched into a wall by Doomfirst. (500 XP)
• Horseshoes, Hand Grenades, and Ultimates: Eliminate three enemies damaged by Bastion’s ultimate. (500 XP)
• Disruptive Behaviour: Earn five eliminations on heroes slowed by Sojourn’s Disruptor shot. (500 XP)
• System-Wide Malfunction: Mitigate 1,000 damage output by Bastion. (500 XP)
• Trigger Discipline: Eliminate a Doomfist within five seconds after his Power Block ends in five games. (500 XP)
• Denied!: Earn an elimination/assist on an enemy Sojourn during her ultimate. (500 XP)
• All Hail The Queen: Earn five eliminations on heroes while they are affected by Junker Queen’s ultimate. (500 XP)
• As The Queen Commands: Earn five eliminations while buffed by Junker Queen’s Commanding Shout. (500 XP)
• Hacksecution: Get five eliminations on heroes highlighted by Sombra’s Hack.
• (500 XP)

Map-based season challenges

Some of the season one challenges ask you to accomplish a certain amount of kills in a certain place on a certain map. If you’re unfamiliar with a map, you can always create a solo custom game to explore a map in. For example, the “Staying on Track” challenge requires you to earn eliminations from the train near the capture point on Midtown. If you don’t know where that is, learning during the heat of a match isn’t always the most optimal way to do this.

Like with the “as Hero” challenges, please be sure not to neglect your team while going to these specific places.

There are 12 map-based season challenges.

• Grand Prix Champion: Win three games in Circuit Royal. (1000 XP)
• Veni, Vidi, Vici: Win three games in Colosseo. (1000 XP)
• Hoping For Victory: Win three games in Esperança. (1000 XP)
• Staying On Track: Earn five eliminations in or from the train near the capture point on Midtown. (500 XP)
• Welcome to the 6IX: Win three games in New Queen Street. (1000 XP)
• High Roller: Earn five eliminations from the balcony of Maison Borsa on Circuit Royal. (500 XP)
• Te Salutant: Earn five eliminations while listening to the cheers of the masses in Colosseo. (500 XP)
• Big Apple Aspirations: Win three games in Midtown. (500 XP)
• Concrete Jungle Playground: Earn five eliminations from above the Midtown Tunnel on Midtown. (500 XP)
• Hometown Advantage: Earn five eliminations from the neighbourhood rooftops in Paraíso. (500 XP)
• Double-Double: Earn five eliminations in or from Hotel Montebianco or the memorial Library on New Queen Street. (500 XP)
• Cidade Maravilhosa: Win three games in Paraiso. (1000 XP)

Competitive-only season challenges

Under the season challenges tab you’ll find some competitive challenges that are distinct from the Competitive challenge tab. There aren’t as many of these, but they’re still quite a bit of a challenge. Don’t forget, you’ll need to clear 50 unranked games before being able to play in competitive mode.

There are five competitive-only season challenges.

• Season 1: Open Queue Competitor: Win seven games in Competitive Play’s Open Queue (1000 XP)
• Season 1: Experienced Competitor: Win 50 games in any Competitive mode. (3000 XP)
• Season 1: Veteran Competitor: Win 100 games in any Competitive mode. (5000 XP)
• Season 1: Amateur Competitor: Win 20 games in any competitive mode. (1000 XP)
• Season 1: Role Queue Competitor: Win seven games in Competitive Play’s Role Queue. (1000 XP)

While these challenges alone aren’t going to wrap the season pass for you, they’re certainly worth pursuing given their ephemeral nature. Team up with friends for the best outcome and keep an eye out for those double XP weekends. Those are as follows:

• The weekend of October 21
• The weekend of October 28
• The weekend of November 24

With 80 tiers in the season one pass, and countless challenges across daily, weekly, seasonal, and competitive, not to mention Hero-unlockable challenges, there’s plenty to keep you busy in Overwatch 2. Crossing off these challenges is a great way to keep an objective in mind as you grind through match after match. And aiming for some of the trickier ones might just improve your game, too.