While this news shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone, I'm afraid to say that the Overwatch closed beta will be shutting down on April 25 in order to allow Blizzard enough time to prepare for the official launch.

This information comes from the latest Overwatch Developer Update in which Jeff Kaplan does a Christopher, Walken, impression, and shares some more information on what the Overwatch team is currently doing, as well as what the post-launch updates will bring. Have a look:

If you're just wondering what the post-launch update schedule is going to look like, Jeff Kaplan put it simply as "they're going to be more frequent, rather than less frequent", and then went on to further explain that their idea with the updates is to increase the amount of interesting features within Overwatch, while not changing things significantly enough to make players either experience burnout, or feel like their favorite element is being removed. Most importantly, he confirmed that any new maps and heroes they release will be completely free!

Since I'd imagine there's many of you out there that, much like me, never got a chance to experience Overwatch during its closed beta state, you'll be delighted to hear that Blizzard will be holding an open beta from May 5-9, with two extra days given to those that pre-order. Overwatch itself will be releasing on May 24.