4 Reasons You Can’t Buy Skins in Overwatch 2

Overwatch 2, the much awaited sequel to the game of the year 2016, Overwatch, has seen a huge influx of players ever since its launch in 2022. However, there has been a major change in the skin system.

While in the first Overwatch, it was possible to earn skins by opening loot boxes, the same isn't true for Overwatch 2, as the only way to get skins in this game is by using the premium currency (Not counting the legacy currency returning players were given). However, what happens when you aren't able to buy skins?

We're here to tell you the many reasons you might not be able to buy skins, as well as how to fix them.

Reason #1: Server Issue

Ever since the game launched, because of the unexpectedly high number of players trying to log in at once, the server has been having issues. Because of this, many players have previously had to wait for hours just to be able to log in to their accounts.

Even after logging in, however, many players reported that they weren't able to purchase any skins, even though they had enough Overwatch coins. This might have been something Blizzard/Activision did to reduce the server load. Even of this had apparently been fixed in a patch, no problem every truly goes away.

If you find yourself facing this issue, then consider simply restarting the game and reconnecting the server and the issue might go away automatically.

Reason #2: Parental Controls

If your account has parental controls which prohibit you from making any sort of in-game purchases, then naturally you won't be able to buy skins at all. If you aren't sure whether or not your account has any parental restrictions, all you have to do is go to account.battle.net and log in to your account.

Then, simply look for the parental control options, and check if it's enabled or disabled. If you aren't able to disable it from there, then you might have to contact customer support or go to the parental portal first, as Activision/Blizzard has been known to be rather strict when it comes to parental controls and things of that sort.

Reason #3: Pending Account Merge

It's a well known fact that Blizzard/Activision decided to make it so you're able to carry over your account progress from the first Overwatch game to this one without any restrictions at all, something that hasn't been seen before.

However, the way in which this happens is that you first have to log in to the ID that you used for the first game, after which you'll get a confirmation message asking if you want to merge your two accounts.

Because the process takes a while and the number of players wanting to merge their accounts was a lot, they made it so you're added to a queue, with the being long or short depending on how many players are trying to do the same thing as you at that time.

However, during the time that the account merging is underway, players are prohibited from making any in game purchases, as that would mess with the process. Therefore, if this is why you are unable to purchase skins, all you have to do is wait for the account merging process to be over.

Reason #4: The Skin is Unpurchasable

While in the first Overwatch, if you couldn't purchase a skin, the price of that skin wouldn't be shown at all to make it obvious to players that it was unpurchasable (which could have been because it was an event exclusive skin), the same isn't true for Overwatch 2.

Instead, even unpurchasable skins have their currencies shown, but they've been slightly greyed out indicating that they can't be purchased. This throws a bunch of players off, especially seeing as how most of these unpurchasable skins are returning Overwatch 1 skins that by all means should be purchasable, at least for returning players.