“Overwatch 2”

A Disappointing Sequel

by Braeden Hoover

“Overwatch 2” is the new first person shooter by Activision Blizzard that everyone is playing. It overrides its predecessor, the original “Overwatch,” and made many changes to gameplay to bring it back to its former glory. They removed and nerfed many crowd-control abilities to make the game less frustrating and to allow for greater skill expression where you can’t simply stunlock enemies in place for an easy elimination.

Blizzard also made perhaps the greatest change yet–switching the game from 6v6 to 5v5. This change makes for less beefy health pools and shields and allows for other roles to have more of a significant impact on the game while also increasing the importance of the tank. Overall, the gameplay is new and exciting, and it feels better to play “Overwatch 2” than the original game. However, it is not without its downsides.

“Overwatch 2” switched to a freeto-play model, adopting a battle pass system and removing the loot box system which, while flawed, allowed players to earn cosmetics by playing the game. You’d assume that they would introduce a new and improved system so that players can earn these skins (which were always free) more efficiently. However, you would be wrong. Blizzard now charges an exorbitant price of $20 per legendary skin–skins which most players had gotten free of charge.

You can earn a new premium currency, but it would take approximately 11 months of weekly challenges to earn enough for a single skin you could get within a week prior to the change. Now, in order to buy every skin inside of the game, it would cost you $12,080.69.

Aside from the blatant price gouging on cosmetics, the Blizzard team is still unwilling to listen to the playerbases’ concerns. A devastating meta is sweeping across the newer version’s competitive scene, with more than 90% of high ranking players using heroes such as Zarya and Sojourn. This imbalance has been ongoing since launch, and two months later, it has not been changed in the slightest.

The game also had potentially one of the worst launches in history. Players were forced to wait in queue for hours just to get into the game because the Overwatch servers could not handle the load, and they were not adequately prepared before releasing the game. The server would often suddenly end matches or boot players out of the game. Additionally, three heroes have been completely disabled for periods of time since release due to game-breaking bugs that were not smoothed out before the game dropped. “Overwatch 2” had an altogether terrible launch experience.

That’s not all. Blizzard has made too many false promises when it came to “Overwatch 2”. While they have delivered on new VFX and a new UI, as well as new character voice interactions, they have failed to release an integral portion of the game on time. “Overwatch 2” was promised to have a PvE mode, where you would progress through the story and expand skill trees for a fresh and exciting co-op experience. However, this has been pushed back to 2023 and is not available on game launch. As a result, the game feels more like an Overwatch 1.1 than an “Overwatch 2”.