An Improvement? Kind of! | Overwatch 2 (PC/PS4/PS5/XbOne/XbSeries/Switch, 2022) PvP Review

In May of this year, I wrote an updated review of Overwatch that went over, well, a variety of things, but more than anything, why I enjoyed the game so much in the first place and why I still enjoy it now even despite the issues that have arisen with the game’s state since 2018 (as well as, y’know, the state of Activision Blizzard themselves). It’s a game that, for all of its problems, does mean a lot to me. It was a game that I first played at probably the perfect time in my life when I had fallen to video game burnout on top of anxiety issues regarding my personal life, what other people thought of me and the state of the world in general. For a while, I even considered it my favorite game of all time, and to this day, there just really isn’t a game quite like Overwatch, or at least, one that hits all the right notes for me that Overwatch does.

Obviously, I went into a lot more detail regarding my thoughts on Overwatch in said review, but I wanted to bring this up as, with the announcement of Overwatch 2 in 2019, you’d probably guess that, as a sequel to a game that I held so close to me, I would definitely be hyped for it.

And you would be right!

…kind of!

PART 1: Overwatch 2’s Announcement and Hectic Development

While the “official” announcement of Overwatch 2 came about at Blizzcon November in 2019, the game was sort of teased in the preceding June when it was stated that a StarCraft FPS game had been canceled to put more focus on Diablo 4 and, well, Overwatch 2 that also implied that the game would have a heavy PvE element.

I was there when that little bit of news came out, and I was a little… mixed about it. While I was interested in getting more Overwatch content, Overwatch itself was a game that I didn’t really think *needed* a sequel, at least for the time being. Especially when the game had only been 3 years old, I more or less just expected that the current update cycle the game had been getting since launch to keep the game going at least for quite a while.

And, admittedly, the game wasn’t exactly in a great state at the time either. I was still enjoying it of course, but this was also around the time of the GOATS meta and a year out from Brigitte’s release which basically started the downfall of Overwatch’s reputation, and ultimately a lot of people were still critical towards the game’s balancing and state, so the idea of a sequel didn’t make a lot of sense to me when there were still a lot of things that could be added to or improved upon in Overwatch as it was.

Still, I also figured that Overwatch 2 would be a while away. The game was basically a footnote in the information about the canceled StarCraft FPS and like a lot of AAA companies it wasn’t unusual for Blizzard to announce video games long before those games were released. Above all else, I figured it would’ve been at least a year or two before Overwatch 2 even got an ‘official’ announcement.

I was wrong. The game not only ended up being announced at the following Blizzcon, but was also leaked through advertisements and people with ties to Blizzard insiders. Which I initially believed was bullshit but one of them did correctly guess Ashe’s announcement the previous year so it wasn’t too far fetched. Regardless, those leaks ended up being proven true, and my thoughts about it pretty much stayed the same. I thought the announcement cinematic was really good and well made, but again, it left me wondering why a game like Overwatch needed to have a sequel, at least one announced only three and a half years after its release.

But as I kept up with information about the game, some stuff started to make sense. Overwatch 2 wasn’t really a sequel in the traditional sense - serving more as a more update/expansion to the game rather than a new game entirely. Overwatch’s PvP would be more or less upgraded into Overwatch 2, with that aspect receiving a good share of enhancements as well, but the main attraction would be the PvE co-op story mode based around the lore of Overwatch with a variety of different upgrades for each character. A lot of people compared it to Team Fortress 2’s MvM, but from the trailers and information it’s more of a Left 4 Dead style mode than anything.

It’s this aspect of the game I would say is a really good direction for the game. I would definitely say that the world and characters of Overwatch have a ton of potential in a way that would be realized better in a PvE setting. We had of course gotten story-based PvE events previously - with 2017 introducing the ‘Archives’ event with a co-op mode that detailed parts of the timeline leading up to the game’s events.

Among the changes Overwatch 2 would make is a new engine that allowed for bigger maps and better support for PvE elements - which I remember seeing articles and interviews from Jeff Kaplan talking about how OW1’s engine was sort of limited on this front and even in the case of those Archive events, there were a lot of new technologies and optimizations that had to be worked on. However, he had also wanted himself to incorporate PvE into the game, and with Overwatch 2 introducing a new engine that would allow more versatility for this gameplay element, this would allow for that dream to come true.

I was definitely, at the very least, interested in what Overwatch 2 had to offer when it would release. But that’s where things get a bit… dicey. In the time between Overwatch 2’s announcement and PvP Early Access release, the first game would end up… stagnating. The last major content update that was released was with Echo in April 2020, save for a Deathmatch map in mid/late 2021. Initially my thought process was more along the lines of “well, okay, Overwatch 2 will release later 2020 or 2021, so I’m alright with giving them more time to work on it while just providing balance updates for Overwatch as it is.”

That… didn’t end up being the case. While Overwatch 1 did receive a few decent balance changes, especially in late 2020, the game would end up stagnating severely - even moreso than it did in the time following Brigitte’s release. Only this time it wasn’t exactly the balancing that was stagnating… moreso the game entirely, with a 2.5 year long content drought in anticipation of a sequel that seemed like it was taking an eternity to come out. I don’t think it would’ve been as much of an issue if Overwatch 2 released in late 2020 or early 2021, but as we all know, a global pandemic hit the world in early 2020 which forced employees to work from home on top of BlizzCon that year being canceled entirely and pushed back as an online event in February 2021, and by that point… it would be announced that Overwatch 2 wouldn’t end up being releasing in 2021. Then, in November of that year, a leaked document came out hinting that the game wouldn’t even be released in 2022 - being pushed back further to 2023.

Obviously, now we know that this was only partially the case, but… what was going on with this game that caused delay after delay, especially for a game that only really seemed to be an expansion to an already existing game?

Well, apparently Overwatch 2’s development was, indeed, a little messy. And not just because of COVID either. 

In April 2021, Jeff Kaplan left Blizzard, and as it turns out this sort of spelled a bad omen for the company, as in July of that year, Activision Blizzard would begin getting hit with several lawsuits indicating that the company had been involved in discrimination against female employees while also turning a blind eye towards ongoing sexual harassment - in what was deemed as the company fostering ‘frat boy’ culture. 

I’m not going to go into detail about what happened as that is a sensitive topic, but while some employees have come out and stated that Team 4 wasn’t involved with the toxic culture going on in ActiBlizz in general, Overwatch is still a Blizzard property and caught in the crossfire of everything going on.

But on top of everything else, it was also stated by one of the Team 4 devs that Bobby Kotick (who I've recently taken to calling 'Bobby Cowdick') would assign random projects to the team, some of which would cause the employees to go overtime, leading to months of development being lost and very likely a contributor to the game being delayed.

So I think we can gather that between the pandemic, toxic worker culture that led to the departure of various employees including Jeff Kaplan, and higher-ups forcing projects and work on the team that would be thrown out… I think it is safe to say that Overwatch 2’s development ended up being a lot more troubled than anyone was expecting.

Oh yeah, also worth mentioning that in addition to everything else McCree’s name was changed to Cole Cassidy as a result of his namesake being part of the sexual harassment problems so much so that he was part of a ‘Cosby’ suite (and before anyone asks, he was merely a namesake and not part of Overwatch’s team so what I said about Team 4 still applies).

Before I continue with anything else though, one common claim I’ve seen is that Overwatch 2 was merely announced as a way to distract from the Blitzchung Hong Kong incident that occurred a little less than a month prior. If you don’t know, on October 6, 2019, a professional Hearthstone player by the username of ‘Blitzchung’ was being interviewed following a match during that year’s ‘Hearthstone Grandmasters’ event, in which the aforementioned player stated ‘Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times’ in Mandarin, which led to Blizzard the next morning announcing that he had been suspended from Hearthstone tournaments for the next year and that his prize money would be forfeited.

Obviously, not a good move, and this would ultimately lead Blizzard into controversy that would continue lingering on them during BlizzCon 2019 - the same BlizzCon where they would announce Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4.

My problem with the sentiment of Overwatch 2 being announced to distract from these controversies is that, well, there’s really no evidence of it aside from gut instinct, which can be debunked pretty easily as it is by just saying… game development, and content creation in general, isn’t easy. I would understand this thinking if Overwatch 2 was merely brought up as a side note or whatever, but that wasn’t the case - when Overwatch 2 was announced, they already had prepared an entire cinematic *and* demos of the game’s PvE containing a few different maps, complete with voice acting, new game mechanics, presentation and character redesigns.

By claiming that Overwatch 2 was announced at BlizzCon 2019 merely to distract from the controversies, you’re basically implying that Blizzard was able to develop an entire demo and create a rather well-made cinematic in less than a month, while also planning for the BlizzCon event and the game’s announcement. This is of course on top of the fact that the game had already been teased months prior.

But okay, let’s say they already had this ready ahead of time and were just keeping it behind the scenes. This is a little more understandable, but even then I still don’t see the evidence. Keep in mind, BlizzCon is still a pretty major event for the company, and I am sure that such an event would have to be planned at least a year ahead of time, and is the only place where games would be announced regardless. Even if the Blitzchung controversies didn’t occur, BlizzCon 2019 was still being planned for early November, and especially considering how Overwatch 2 was teased prior, and that the Overwatch dev team had a support cycle for Overwatch 1 planned before Overwatch 2’s release, I really doubt that this is the case either. 

Regardless, it did seem like over time the development team started to notice the content drought Overwatch 1 was facing as a result of the prolonged development of Overwatch 2. In the middle of December last year (2021 as of writing this), I noticed a surge in positivity towards the game’s future from a bunch of Overwatch content creators. Supposedly, there had been a meeting between them that left a good impression on them that they shared on Twitter. Unfortunately, those content creators were under NDA and couldn’t share what took place in the meeting, but I theorize that it related to a shift in plans about to take place relating to the future of Overwatch 2 and how it would end up being rolled out.

On March 10, 2022, I woke up, probably made myself a cup of coffee and toasted some pop-tarts, turned on my computer and opened Twitter and Discord - y’know, the usual routine - to come across a newly posted tweet by the PlayOverwatch Twitter announcing an interesting surprise. The first beta of Overwatch 2’s PvP would begin on April 26, 2022, containing all the changes it would hold for the multiplayer portion of the game. The team seemed to recognize that the development of Overwatch 2 was taking too long and came at the expense of the original game basically being neglected, and the PvP would be made available first, with the PvE mode coming out over time.

I know some people were disappointed by the fact that Overwatch 2 wouldn’t have PvE at launch, but I do think this decision was ultimately for the better. I feel like with everything going on within Blizzard and even just within OW’s development team, and how long Overwatch 2’s PvE was taking, I do feel like Overwatch would’ve suffered more had the content drought continued as Overwatch 2 seemed further and further over the horizon. So while it does suck that the PvE portion wasn’t available at launch, I can’t really blame the team for wanting to push the PvP forward to provide the playerbase with new content.

Anyway, I got access to the first Overwatch 2 PvP beta when it became available through watching 4 hours of Twitch streams at a specific timeframe on April 27 (which I totally didn’t just leave on in the background and muted). A bit of an obtuse way to get in, but I managed to do so and my initial impressions were pretty positive. While the game still felt similar to the original game, I did feel the gameplay balance at least was the best it felt since 2018. CCs and shields were pretty much wiped out of the game and each hero actually felt viable to some extent, basically negating the “rock, paper, scissors” feel that the game had basically evolved into.

That being said, my main concern with Overwatch 2 was whether or not it would be… enough. The changes made definitely seemed like a good start, but on the same token… Overwatch’s reputation as it was had been going on a downward slope, and that only accelerated when ActiBlizz’s various controversies started to come out (including the Blitzchung incident). I really wanted the game to live up to its peak popularity from 2016-2017 - which, I guess to be fair, is asking for a lot, especially considering ActiBlizz’s reputation as a whole - but I at least hoped that Overwatch 2 would draw back some of the playerbase that was sort of alienated by the direction the original game ultimately took.

That leads us into June 12, 2022, the day of the Xbox and Bethesda Game Showcase. I ended up watching it live, and among the other game announcements and trailers being shown, was a well made trailer for Overwatch 2 that revealed that the game would be releasing in early access on October 4, 2022 alongside the game’s next new hero, Junker Queen, on top of going free to play. At least the PvP portion of it as mentioned.

…granted the surprise was a little ruined for me as right before the announcement came I saw a tweet linking an article from Activision’s official website stating that the game would be launching on said date. Still a surprise nonetheless.

Point is, after 2.5 years of pretty much nothing, Overwatch would finally be getting new content, something I think was needed over anything else with the state that the game was in.

But now it’s been a few weeks since the game was released, and with that said…

PART 2: Presentation

Overwatch’s art style and presentation was always among the biggest elements that were notable about the game when it originally released in 2016. Compared to most FPS games coming out around the time having dark, gritty ‘realistic’ visuals, Overwatch offered a more colorful, ‘cartoony’ style with a set of distinct characters, along with their separate playstyles, contained their own set of physical traits and animations that portrayed their personalities in one way or another. Of course, Overwatch wasn’t the first FPS game to do something like this - obviously Team Fortress 2 was cited as an inspiration for the game - but even then Overwatch set itself apart by being more Pixar-like in quality, for lack of a better word.

Overwatch 2 keeps the art style of the first game going, but along with that a greater degree of fidelity with its lighting system. Probably the most obvious change in this area is that when looking at maps that were kept from Overwatch 1, you’ll likely notice that many of them now take place at a different time of day. To name a couple examples, Oasis which previously took place in a sunset/dusk setting now takes place at night, or Dorado which is the other way around (albeit more of a sunrise/dawn in that case but close enough). Albeit I believe this is sort of more for the time being, as from what I’ve gathered, this is part of a system in which the time of day may change randomly each time you play a map, or at the very least, will change each season, with the upcoming PvE mode allegedly offering changes in the weather for each map in addition to the different times of day.

I have heard some mixed reactions towards Overwatch 2’s lighting system, and to clear one thing up - Overwatch 2’s lighting system is of a higher fidelity than Overwatch 1’s. Ambient occlusion is a major new addition here, meaning that shadows are darker in areas and things like reflections stand out more. This can be seen when comparing Watchpoint: Gibraltar in both games - the map that ended up with the least amount of lighting changes - where colors feel softer and ‘cleaner’ in Overwatch 2 compared to the first game and there’s a bit more prominence in the shadows and reflections. Night maps especially look like an improvement in Overwatch 2 in my opinion as the lights tend to ‘pop’ more alongside the color of the environment.

That being said, how it’s incorporated into the art style of Overwatch is somewhat of a mixed bag. Stages like Oasis and Lijiang Tower are in my opinion improved - where the lighting of the night and sunset respectively don’t feel overpowering and in some ways enhances the feeling of the stages both from the interior and exterior. But, on the other hand, maps like King’s Row and Ilios don’t make the change successfully - the night setting in King’s Row really tones down the yellow/orange coloring that fits the “Wild West” aesthetic and in turn makes everything look a tad more gray and dull, giving the map a more ‘homogenous’ feel. 

In Ilios’ case, however, this was probably the one most people were thinking of when criticizing Overwatch 2’s lighting, and I can’t necessarily blame them. Ilios now takes place in a sunset setting, compared to its mid-day/afternoon setting in the first game, but there’s a heavy amount of orange in the lighting and ambience in a way that feels overpowering, and unfortunately, the style of the map suffers as a result. The blue and white architecture based on real life Greece towns and buildings is completely mitigated by the overpowering orange.

I do ultimately hope it’s true that as time goes on we’ll see more variety in the different times of day in each map, not just because it’s an interesting concept of its own, but also so the art style of Overwatch and each of it’s maps end up with more variety and in some cases adjustments to how the lighting works.

Overwatch 2 also adds redesigns for the characters and… I think they’re fine. I don’t really have strong opinions on many of the redesigns - there are some I like better like D.Va and Bastion, and some I’m not so fond of like Genji (why is his ‘sweater’ just his armor) or Orisa, but I don’t really feel strongly enough about any of them to really say whether I think across the board I see this as a positive or negative change. I feel like what they were going for was to sort of simplify some of the designs in a way that expresses their main personality traits and design elements better, but of course, certain characters and aspects flourish while others suffer.

I think really the biggest criticism I have, more than anything, isn’t necessarily just the character redesigns themselves, but rather their portraits and ‘profile’ shots. The way the portraits are drawn feel oversimplified to the point of actually detracting from some of the notable design elements of the characters. The biggest example of that is Junkrat - whereas his character model still seems to display the grime on his face, in his drawn portrait it’s negated to the point where it looks like Junkrat discovered soap and water after 6 years.

In general I kind of feel like the drawn Overwatch 1 portraits just… did an overall better job expressing the characters and their different personalities, plus at accentuating the notable design traits of each character. 

And as far as the Hero Gallery profile shots are concerned, I get more of a… cheap vibe from all of them. The lighting at least makes them look sort of plastic-y vibe as if many of them were a picture taken of plastic figures of the characters rather than in-game model screenshots. Some of them look fine enough, particularly Junker Queen, but it’s a common trend I see when looking at the Hero Gallery and when on the Hero Select screen at the start of each round.

The UI has also changed, and I gotta admit, when I first saw the Overwatch 2 UI as showcased in the BlizzCon 2019 demos, my first thought was that it looked like Windows 10 to me. The game goes for a somewhat more minimal look with it’s UI elements that in some cases I kind of like and in some cases I don’t. I do think the in-game UI does look cleaner especially combined with the changes in Overwatch 2’s art direction, but I did prefer the more slanted text in the game’s main menu and the blue-red round transmission used in the Control modes looks way too basic for my liking compared to the visual effects used in the first game.

There’s… kind of a trend here going on, isn’t there?

PART 3: Gameplay

As an update/sequel, much of the core gameplay of Overwatch carries over to Overwatch 2. If you’re already familiar with Overwatch, then you’ll probably know most of what you’re getting into with Overwatch 2. If you don’t, well, to summarize - Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer FPS game with a wide cast and variety of “heroes” to choose from, each with their own kit, abilities and playstyles. 

What made Overwatch stand out over other shooters, even games like Team Fortress 2 in which inspiration was cited from, was how the game was built around teamplay using elements from MOBA titles in addition to the fast-paced, smooth gameplay of a modern (somewhat Quake-like) FPS game. Whereas teamplay in other games was more something that could benefit the team as a whole (like, again, Team Fortress 2), in Overwatch that aspect makes up for a greater part of the core game experience. 

This is more of a generalization of course, and I do go more in depth with how I talk about it in my actual Overwatch review, but I figured to at least provide a basic recap when talking about the gameplay of Overwatch 2.

At its best, Overwatch was a very satisfying game to play. There really wasn’t any other game that provided the same amount of satisfaction or the “rush” when you managed to successfully defeat the other team, doing so by being around and bouncing off your abilities between other teammates, or even just the intensity of the various team fights that would occur with both teams trying their hardest. What engaged me about Overwatch from the start over other games was just how intense it could get, especially with how each player, including me, was incentivized to do well.

That being said, I can’t deny that the game’s balance sort of went into a… weird direction, to say the least. While I still very much enjoyed Overwatch as a casual game (basically just sticking to Quick Play and Arcade modes because I can’t handle the sweat and salt of Competitive mode), it did feel like over time the desire to balance the game around more competitive players did in part lead to the game feeling a bit too counterpick heavy, and this especially became an issue as the game started to incentivize “metas” rather than making each character feel viable to play.

If there is any moment where I really feel like the criticism towards the game really ramped up, I would easily point to Brigitte. Sure, there were complaints regarding Moira, Doomfist, and the Mercy reworks prior, but I definitely consider the reveal and release of Brigitte - who came out extremely overpowered and just not fun to play against - to be the tipping point, especially with how long it took for the development team to properly balance her. This was in part the catalyst that eventually led to the GOATS and double/triple shield metas which practically took over the Overwatch meta up until Role Queue was added - which even then didn’t stop the double shield metas.

Crowd control was also a major problem that affected the Overwatch meta. Whereas initially it was more limited - the worst case scenario for most people being Mei’s freezing ability (skill issue lul) - it did sort of get to the point of just being outright obnoxious especially with Brigitte. I mean you basically had Brigitte’s shield, Ana’s nade, Junkrat’s trap, Cassidy’s flashbangs, Roadhog’s hook, Sigma’s giant boulder move - all of which restricted your movement if not outright stunned you for briefs period of time, and added up to practically being abused to the point of making the game unfun to play for many. And those are just examples I could think of when applying to the 2-2-2 format of the game, because there’s definitely more than those.

I bring this up as, according to the development team, one very big aspect of Overwatch 2 that they are trying to change is the balancing - make the game less rock, paper, scissors and counterpick heavy and make each character more viable to play. Hard CC abilities are something that’s been mitigated if not outright removed. For example, Mei can no longer freeze enemies outside of her ultimate (although can slow them down), Cassidy’s flashbang ability is replaced with a ‘Magnetic Grenade’, and Brigitte’s shield bash no longer stuns enemies and instead just knocks them back.

The only hard CC’s that I could really tell carried over from Overwatch 1 was Ana’s sleep ability, Junkrat’s trap (although in the beta it just slowed you down but I guess they reverted that), Reinhardt’s pin ability, Sigma’s rock and Roadhog’s hook - which aren’t as annoying to deal with now on their own (and also notice how three of those are abilities for Tank characters - this relates to something I’ll touch upon in a bit). A lot of the other abilities that could be defined as crowd control usually just serve as abilities to knock the players back rather than stun them and lock down their control for periods of time - ‘soft’ CC versus ‘hard’ CC if you want to call it that. 

In addition to that, many characters have been reworked to some extent or another. Obviously the reduction and removal of hard CC abilities with adjustments to their respective kits made to balance them out (i.e. while Mei can no longer freeze with her primary weapon, it can still slow down enemies and deals more damage than before) is a somewhat major change across the board, but a few heroes have been basically overhauled entirely going into Overwatch 2. 

For one thing Doomfist is now a tank, and while he does carry over much of the same abilities that he had in Overwatch 1, he’s also been balanced in a way that makes him feel more tank-like - sharing similar passive abilities that other tanks do, along with his damage output being reduced across all his abilities, but his Rocket Punch has a faster max charge time and his Seismic Slam is more versatile with the ability to move within whatever direction you’re aiming at. On top of all this, his Upper Cut has been replaced with a ‘Power Block’ move that reduces the amount of damage taken by 80% and can be used to supercharge his Rocket Punch for greater damage output, faster speed, and further distance, in addition to the ability to stun enemies for 0.5-1 second.

The characters that received arguably the most notable reworks however are Bastion and Orisa. Bastion can now move around in his Assault/Turret form, which y’know, may sound annoying out of context, but it’s also made temporary - he can only stay in this form for 6 seconds and it comes with a 12 second cooldown. In addition he can no longer self-heal and that ability has been replaced with a grenade that can bounce off walls. On top of this his ultimate has been replaced with an ‘Artillery’ form that allows him to shoot three missiles from the sky. It’s a pretty interesting direction for his character that makes him more Attack and skill based and less like one that can theoretically just sit in the shadows and mow down enemies.

Orisa no longer has her shield, representing a means of moving past the shield-based metas in the first game, nor does she have her ‘Halt’ ability. Instead, she has two new ‘javelin’ abilities - one of which being a ranged attack where she throws a javelin, pretty self-explanatory, but the other is her Javelin Spin which blocks her any damage from the front that also knocks back and does damage to any enemies that come in contact with it. I guess that does kind of make it a shield but one that only lasts <2 seconds and has a 7 second cooldown. In general the way she’s balanced in Overwatch 2 makes her feel more like an attack tank rather than a more defensive tank like she was in the original game.

In general the tank class has been balanced the most in a way that makes them more attack-centric with increases to their HP and various buffs to their abilities. This can of course be attributed to a pretty major change to how teams are set up in Overwatch 2 versus the first game that basically entails removing one player from each team.

What this means is that Overwatch 2 makes for a 5v5 game rather than the first game’s 6v6. In Role Queue specifically, this makes for a setup of 1 tank, 2 DPS and 2 supports, versus 2 tanks in the first game. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about this change when it was revealed, but now that I’ve gotten the chance to play it… I’ve actually warmed up to the change. The mere concept of it even just on its own does quite a lot to freshen up the meta and reduce the amount of “2 tank, 2 shield” metas especially considering how the first game often felt like it dipped into being ‘shooting giant monsters and shields simulator’. 

Having one tank frankly just makes the game feel more engaging for every role. As the rare species known as a ‘tank main’ (D.Va btw), the role feels more engaging in that you’re more incentivized to do well being the main ‘frontline’ of your team, both leading the attacks while protecting the team with your comparatively larger pool of health, and as both Damage and Support characters there’s less generally damage output needed to take down two tanks with the focus shifted to the single tank on the other team. In layman’s terms, like I said, the game feels less like ‘shooting giant monsters and shields simulator’.

Ultimately the game is balanced more in a way that allows each hero to feel more viable in matches and in some ways extends solo carry potential especially as a tank. Overwatch 2 still retains a lot of the team-based gameplay that is built into the core experience like it’s predecessor, but there’s definitely more mechanical skill involved, each hero feels more viable and it doesn’t feel as counterpick heavy as the first game devolved into in its later years. The balancing isn’t necessarily perfect - Zarya does feel somewhat overpowered, Doomfist feels pretty weak as a solo tank and Sombra - but the reduction of hard CC’s and shift to 5v5 (with one less tank on each team) have done a lot to move the game in a direction I’m fond of, and dare I say is the best Overwatch in general has felt since 2018.

And playing Overwatch 2 now, with all the balance changes and the like… sort of reminds me of an element of Overwatch’s gameplay that I never really thought much about, but one that definitely contributed to what appealed to me about Overwatch compared to other, similar multiplayer FPS games - that being how it *feels* to play.

Whether you like Overwatch or not, I think one thing most people can agree on is that it’s polished. Blizzard games, at least historically, have generally held a decent layer of polish that not many games from other companies have really replicated. This isn’t necessarily to say Blizzard games are entirely devoid of glitches and the like, especially at launch, but there’s always been a certain ‘smoothness’ to the gameplay that makes Blizzard’s games, in the past at least, just feel… good to play.

Overwatch is of course no exception to this. The game’s historically been pretty well polished when it comes to elements such as collision/hit detection, movement, and control among other things, and putting that layer of Blizzard polish into a fast-paced FPS game works extremely well. It’s really hard to put into words, but if you’ve played Overwatch, or any previous Blizzard game really, you’d probably know what I’m talking about.

Overwatch in general has always just felt smooth mechanically, and even with those I’ve talked to who’ve perhaps quit playing the game due to questionable balance changes or whatever, tend to agree on that, but I feel like until now it’s something I’ve sort of taken for granted. Trust me when I say that I have looked into playing other multiplayer FPS games - sometimes due to burnout perhaps, other times due to ActiBlizz’s controversies being in the spotlight - including going back to Paladins, a game that does at least check a few similar boxes for me that Overwatch does, and while I do still respect Paladins and that team’s work, that game, along with other similar multiplayer games, misses the mark for me when it comes to just how good Overwatch feels to play mechanically. How smooth yet fast-paced the gameplay is, the decent feeling gunplay, the engaging and satisfying team battles… all really adding up to Overwatch just being a game that’s just unlike any other that I’ve played and one that just can’t quite be substituted in my eyes in terms of how it blends it’s different elements.

Over time I do kind of feel like the ‘game feel’ aspect of Overwatch was sort of overshadowed by the many issues the game itself had, especially in terms of its approach to balancing, and with Overwatch 2 finally seeming to mitigate the game’s counterpick-heavy nature, and bringing the game back more to its core as a fast-paced shooter, I feel like even just playing the open beta of Overwatch 2 really has made me understanding this aspect of Overwatch’s gameplay that still helps it stand out to me over other titles.

But okay, balancing and polish is one thing, but how about actual new content? Coming out of Overwatch’s 2.5 year long drought, you’d probably expect new heroes and maps and the like, especially in an update that’s posing as a sequel, so what does Overwatch 2 add to the gameplay to spice things up?

For one thing, six new maps are added. Two of them being part of the ‘Hybrid’ mode - Midtown and Paraiso, one of them being part of the Escort mode - Circuit Royal - and three of them taking place within, spoiler alert, a new mode that I’ll cover in just a little bit. I figured this was probably the best one to get out of the way first since, in all honesty, I don’t really have much of an opinion on Overwatch’s maps in general and these are included. 

I really like the aesthetics of these maps, and being built particularly for Overwatch 2 rather than just being ported from the first game, they do the best job of displaying Overwatch 2’s improved lighting and fidelity. Midtown is probably my favorite of these new maps at least on this level - merely for the fact that I generally like NYC style settings in media a lot so it’s nice to see that in Overwatch now as well. Problem is, I’m not the best at analyzing map design in games like these so I’ll just say on that level… they’re good!

One thing I was more interested in than anything else though was Overwatch 2’s new heroes, since this is of course a game pretty notorious for having a wide cast and variety, and on that note Overwatch 2 delivers three of them. 

The first one that was revealed as far back as BlizzCon 2019 was Sojourn, a DPS character, and one that’s actually pretty unique when it comes to Overwatch’s cast, particularly on a movement level. Among her abilities is a new ‘Power Slide’ move that basically does what it sounds like - a fast slide move that can power a higher jump - and paired with her Railgun and secondary fire that can be charged up, she feels like what I can best describe as a very Quake-like character, something that honestly surprises me now that I think about it considering the fast-paced nature of Overwatch’s gameplay.

Junker Queen was the second new character to be revealed… quite a long time after, being revealed alongside the game’s release announcement in Xbox and Bethesda’s 2022 Game Showcase. She serves as the game’s newest tank hero, and while she definitely won’t replace my sweet darling D.Va, I did have fun playing as her when I did. She’s somewhat similar to Roadhog if I can make a comparison, with a Scattergun and ‘Jagged Blade’ ability that, while not nearly as strong as Roadhog’s hook, does pull back enemies that are caught by it somewhat on top of doing ‘Wound’ damage. 

But I would say what sets her apart is that she’s also lighter movement-wise but not as strong damage-wise. Whereas Roadhog has more DPS and kill potential, Junker Queen is more of a tank that serves to benefit the teammates around her with her Commanding Shout on top of feeling a bit faster movement-wise. More or less could be defined as an alternate take on Roadhog’s playstyle and kit that ultimately does end up serving something new when it comes to the Tank category.

That said, the last hero to be revealed has to be my favorite of the bunch - that being Kiriko, the newest Support hero that might actually be my new favorite Support hero period. I know it was kind of a joke how every Japanese character in Overwatch has been a ninja who can climb walls, but I can’t deny that I’ve had a lot of fun playing as her. She carries a decent blend of both movement and healing abilities - with the aforementioned wall climb and her ‘Swift Step’ ability to teleport to her teammates from a distance, even through walls, plus pretty good healing and damage output that sort of puts her in the center of a more movement-based support like Lucio or a ‘main’ healer like Mercy. That and she’s basically a furry and, y’know, that gets bonus points from me.

Over anything else though, the biggest change to Overwatch 2 when it comes to its PvP is the new Push mode. I referred to this earlier when talking about the added maps in Overwatch 2 but figured when talking about the new content this was probably the biggest addition and best to save for last. ‘Push’ is added into the rotation of Quick Play and Competition and serves as a ‘tug of war’ mode. Basically, there’s a robot in the middle of the map that pushes a barricade to one of two different sides depending on which team has control of the robot (meaning that at least one team member is close by the robot without an opposing team member present, pretty much similar rules to most objectives in the game). 

The winning team here is determined by which team pushes the barricade to the opposing spawn, or which team has pushed it a further distance when time has run out. Control of the robot can be taken at any time depending on which team has a member that is close by, and the robot stalls if any number of members from both teams are nearby the robot. It’s sort of similar to the ‘Control’/King of the Hill mode that has existed since the start of Overwatch 1, but only taking place as a single round and movement taking a much bigger place here as the robot is continuously moved and players are required to stay around it, as opposed to each team targeting or defending a set point.

Ultimately I do think it’s a decent new mode, and the maps that come with it are pretty nice too, though if I did have one criticism, I feel like with the “always moving” nature of this mode, it does lead to some situations where it’s harder to come back from dying. I have heard complaints that this mode is decided by the first team fight or whatever but at the same time I have been in quite a few matches where my team managed to come back against the odds even when the other team had pushed the robot a fair distance towards our spawn.

But I do think the issue is more so that one team can definitely gain an advantage and a decent amount of distance if they’re able to win a team fight, and part of it is that it is a bit harder to regroup with your team and make it back to the robot, especially when playing heroes that lack movement options to help them get to the objective easier. This issue is at least somewhat mitigated with checkpoints that activate if the robot has made it halfway towards either spawn but it can still be present just in how the mode is designed to keep each player always on the move.

That said I don’t think it’s necessarily a deal breaker though because Push matches can be just as interesting as the other modes. Maybe there are some aspects that could be tweaked, especially as further maps are released, but even with that issue aside, I wouldn’t say I really have much to complain about with the new Push mode.

Though it’s worth mentioning that, at least when it comes to the main Quick Play and Competitive rotation, the Push mode replaces another one of the original Overwatch 1 modes - Assault, also known as ‘2CP’. Apparently this mode wasn’t very popular with the Overwatch community due to how reliant it seemed to be on choke points, especially in the case of later maps like Horizon: Lunar Colony and Paris, and with Overwatch 2, this mode has been pushed into the daily Arcade rotation rather than being one of the ‘main’ game modes.

Truth be told, I never really had that much of an issue with Assault/2CP myself, but I can understand the desire for it to be replaced in the main game rotation, especially with a mode that puts more emphasis on movement in addition to the core attack and defense style of gameplay. When the game first launched I was hoping that some of the maps, particularly Hanamura, were reworked as maps that fit into one of the other game modes, but I guess they aren’t totally gone now with Assault still being present in Arcade and Custom games.

So far, it sounds like my Overwatch 2 gameplay experience has been fairly positive. Which I guess is about expected from someone who’s kept up with Overwatch since 2016, but the balance changes, new game mode and content all seem pretty good so far with some minor problems. From a core gameplay perspective, Overwatch 2 does make some good changes over the original.

Question is… does Overwatch 2 offer enough new changes and content to warrant being a sequel?

On a technical level, Overwatch 2 is more or less just a major update to the original game, and judging it as such, it does bring some decent changes and additions to the core gameplay. However, it’s still being marketed as a sequel - I mean, that alone is made clear by just reading the name, ‘Overwatch 2’. A common sentiment I’ve seen is that Overwatch 2 feels more like Overwatch 1.5, and I do gotta agree there is merit to this.

Thing is, Overwatch 2 as a ‘sequel’ always referred to the implementation of its PvE co-op mode with the PvP changes being more of a bonus on top of that. But with the PvE seeming to take way longer in development than expected, and in the process Overwatch as it is being stagnant, it was the best course of action to go ahead and release the PvP, and release PvE over time.

But it’s a double edged sword. By not releasing PvE, it sort of negates the whole reason why Overwatch 2 was marketed as a sequel. The PvE element of Overwatch 2 was intended to be the big new feature, and one that seems to be very ambitious in nature, and by not coming out alongside the PvP, Overwatch 2 doesn’t end up offering enough to warrant being called a sequel or a game of its own.

This sort of thing was actually something I was concerned about as far back as 2020 if not earlier - that Overwatch 2 would make more sense if it was marketed as an update and/or expansion pack rather than being referred to as a sequel, and this was when we all still thought that PvE was going to come out alongside PvP. I sort of look at it as the same issue with the Wii U, but in the opposite direction. Whereas the Wii U was a new console that, merely due to the name and marketing focus on the ‘Gamepad’ gimmick, people believed was an overpriced Wii add-on, Overwatch 2 is basically an update and expansion upon the game that’s being treated as a sequel.

Problem is, my opinion on Overwatch 2 slightly shifts depending on whether I’m looking at it as an update or as a sequel. As an update, Overwatch 2 does make a lot of good changes to Overwatch’s core gameplay, but as a sequel… that still applies, but it doesn’t feel like it’s *enough* per se. The new PvP content is ultimately pretty minimal and especially with PvE coming out later on rather than releasing alongside it, Overwatch 2 still has yet to reach its full potential as a sequel. And even that’s kind of squandered from what I’ve heard about PvE possibly coming out in pieces rather than a full mode of its own.

And I haven’t really addressed some of the controversial changes and aspects of Overwatch 2, which on the mere merit of being an Activision Blizzard game is practically inevitable. 

First of all, I have to say that the launch of Overwatch 2 was a bit of a mess, particularly for one major reason - no one could actually play the game. Pretty much every time I booted it up, I would be hit with a screen telling me there were 50,000 players ahead of me to gain access to Overwatch 2, and even when I waited for that number to slowly decrease, often it would end up just stopping at ‘0 players ahead’, time me out and send me back to the queue. With many people, even if they did manage to get into the game, there was a level of Russian Roulette being played with how the game would randomly kick players back out to the end of the queue. Supposedly a big part of the issue was a result of various DDoS attacks that played out in the first few days alongside the large volume of players trying to get in, and this was an issue that affected most if not all players. 

But that wasn’t even the only issue at launch. Many players also reported that their progression in Overwatch 1 - all the characters being unlocked, cosmetics, and so on didn’t transfer over to Overwatch 2 initially. This wasn’t an issue that affected me, but was something I pretty commonly heard.

On top of those, just about a week into Overwatch 2, Torbjorn became unplayable in competitive mode and Bastion became unplayable… period. Both of which supposedly had to do with problems with their abilities - Torbjorn’s Overload duration could be doubled with stacked armor if the button was pressed at the right time, and Bastion’s three missiles during his ultimate could become infinite by pressing both inputs at the same time, bypassing the missile count and allowing Bastion to violate the Geneva conventions.

Both of these issues have been fixed after both heroes have been taken out for about 2 weeks, and hopefully no more heroes have been taken out.

Right?

Well, just as I was writing this review, it was announced that Mei had been taken out of the game until November 15 due to a bug with her Ice Wall that could allow Kiriko in particular to clip through the ceiling and access out of bound areas in the game. And also as I’m writing this, it’s recently been discovered that Brigitte’s shield can become unbreakable when used along Kiriko’s ultimate within a certain window with her shield being damaged. 

And it seems that there are also other clipping issues with Kiriko, so I have a good feeling that by the time I’m done writing this, either Brigitte or Kiriko (or both perhaps) may be taken out of the game as well. Ah, good ol’ spaghetti code, never change.

But wait - when I brought up the issue of progression not carrying over from Overwatch 1, I mentioned among the things not being brought over was all the characters being unlocked. Unless you’ve kept up with Overwatch 2, you may think “aren’t all characters in Overwatch unlocked from the start?” And you’d be right… if this was Overwatch 1.

In Overwatch 2, between cracking down on smurfs and trying to improve the first-time user experience, the development team has developed a system in which ‘competitive’ mode isn’t unlocked until after a player has won 50 matches, but more importantly, you’re only given 13 out of the 35 heroes which gradually unlock as you play up to 150 matches (with wins being counted as two matches after unlocking Ana) if you’re a new player who didn’t come over from the original game.

This change has proved to be somewhat controversial, merely for the amount of grinding involved to unlock the full cast that was available from the start in Overwatch 1, but I have to be honest here… I’m not entirely against this idea, at least on principle and not factoring any monetization aspects.

I do think that the amount of matches one has to play in order to unlock the full cast is a bit steep, but I have run into people that talked about being overwhelmed by the amount of characters in Overwatch. And especially considering some heroes have a higher skill curve and ceiling than others, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to allow the players to try out some of the easier heroes before getting access to some of the harder ones. A first time player would definitely have an easier time understanding the game and its mechanics by playing heroes like Soldier 76, Mercy, Tracer, or Reinhardt among others compared to a hero like Wrecking Ball who can definitely be harder to understand and play well.

Plus this isn’t to mention that this is pretty in-line with other games with wide casts of characters that also only give you access to certain, easier to understand ones from the start while unlocking others over time, such as Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Apex Legends or Paladins. You could make the argument that compared to those games, counter picking is a pretty major part of Overwatch, but with the team seeming to be moving away from that element of Overwatch’s gameplay, I don’t really see it as a huge issue.

Another change that has been done, also as a way of deterring smurfs, is requiring a phone number attached to your account. This is also a fairly controversial addition, and I do understand - not only over privacy concerns, but being a teenager growing up with only a home phone until I was about 16-17, this would’ve probably annoyed me due to lack of access to a phone of my own.

But again, on a theoretical level I’m not too bothered by this change. Let’s be real here, it’s 2022, and so many online services at this point want you to have a smartphone associated with your account in the first place. I mean, you need one to make online purchases in general, and services like Steam require you to enable a phone with 2FA in order to access certain features like the marketplace, not to mention from what I remember Google even requires a phone number just to make an account. So while I can understand why some would find this annoying or intrusive, it doesn’t really bother me with how commonplace this sort of thing is especially if it combats the issue of smurfs.

The problem I have is moreso with the implementation and it’s overreach. A big issue that was being faced with this feature was that prepaid phone and VoIP plans weren’t accepted, meaning several players with plans such as Cricket just outright weren’t able to play the game, and of course it’s pretty obvious to see why this would be an annoyance. Personally I do technically have a prepaid phone plan and didn’t seem to have any issues connecting it to my Battle.net, but I did start said plan back in 2018 and have also moved between phones so I’m assuming that might have something to do with it.

Nonetheless, it does seem that the team has taken note of this problem and at the very least relaxed this requirement. Just one day after Overwatch 2’s launch, it was announced that previous Overwatch 1 players with connected Battle.net accounts since June 2021 wouldn’t have to worry about the requirement as of October 7, which does at least mitigate the issue.

But there’s one major problem I have with Overwatch 2. And unfortunately, the problem is so major that I need to give it its own part of the review, separated from the gameplay and everything else. So, here we go.

PART 4: Monetization

Before I talk about anything else, Overwatch 2 is free to play, so if you hadn’t played the original game due to its $40-$60 price tag, that may give you some incentive to try it out. But being free to play, this does come with some changes to how Overwatch was previously monetized.

Let’s take a step back here. The original Overwatch game was one that received its share of controversy due to its use of loot boxes - a form of monetization that gave players a box that when opened would give out a random assortment of items. I will say that with Overwatch in particular, it was one of the more consumer friendly variations of this model - you could get 3 free ones every week by winning Arcade matches and got one free every time you leveled up. 

Problem is being the most consumer friendly loot box is equivalent to being the least smelly pile of shit. Yes, you did get them for free pretty easily, and ultimately they were cosmetics-only, but if there was a skin or other cosmetic that you really wanted for your main, your options were to either grind for loot boxes until you either got the cosmetic itself or enough currency in order to purchase the cosmetic from the shop, or pay for loot boxes outright and again cross your fingers for either possibility.

It didn’t exactly help that there was no way to purchase Overwatch coins outright - again leaving you only with the option to grind out or pay for loot boxes and hope to acquire coins that way. So even if Overwatch was one of the more generous uses of this model, those predatory elements ended up leading to more “live service” games implementing them in ways that were even more predatory - even to the point of outright locking gameplay features behind loot boxes without giving an easy way to grind for them. Yeah, I’m talking about Star Wars Battlefront II here, and not the actually good 2005 game.

With Overwatch 2, the wish for loot boxes to be removed have been granted, but since this is Activision Blizzard, that wish has been made on a monkey’s paw. Overwatch 2 now has a Battle Pass, a new monetization system that has become commonplace with live service games like Fortnite, Apex Legends, and Fall Guys. 

Basically, each season offers a wide assortment of items that one can grind for, with certain items that are unlocked for free, but most others requiring a ‘premium’ pass for $10. Grinding isn’t too hard, especially since the game does offer daily, weekly and seasonal challenges that really help progression and aren’t too difficult to pull off. 

To be honest I do think for $10 every 3 months the Battle Pass at least does give you a lot of cosmetic items and grinding for them isn’t too hard even if you don’t pay that price tag (though if you don’t you only get certain items throughout the Battle Pass), but more than anything else, my issue isn’t necessarily the Battle Pass itself, rather that alongside the Battle Pass, a pretty massive sin is committed.

Let’s go back to the first Overwatch game. Even with the loot box element, again, it still only really covered cosmetic items. On the other hand, any new characters or maps that were added to the game were made available for free to all players, therefore not placing any actual gameplay elements behind a paywall aside for the $40 price tag of the game itself.

Now, I mentioned that I wasn’t entirely against the idea of the first-time user hero grind on the merit of allowing new users to have access to easier characters in order to better understand the mechanics of the game… but specifically not factoring in any monetization. I gotta be honest here, up until writing this part of this essay I was under the impression that there wasn’t a way to skip the grind through a paywall. Well, guess what, I was wrong and I gave Activision Blizzard too much credit - turns out there is a way to skip the grind if one pays for the $40 Watchpoint Pack which includes instant access to all heroes alongside the Premium Battle Pass for Season 1, 2000 in-game coins and various cosmetics including ones from the previously sold ‘Legendary’ edition. Because, of course.

But I think the main thing that I was really thinking about going into this aspect of the review was that, in particular, new heroes going forward seem to be locked behind the Battle Pass - in this case, Kiriko. Granted, those who owned the original game or those who bought the Watchpoint Pack unlock her instantly, but if you’re a new F2P player, you have to either grind for her in the ‘free’ track, in which she unlocks at level 55, or unlock her instantly by paying the $10 Premium Battle Pass. And even if you did own the original game or bought the Watchpoint Pack, this sort of implies that down the road, new heroes added every other season will be locked behind this Battle Pass system. Grinding for cosmetics is one thing, but locking actual gameplay elements behind the Pass, especially at a fairly high tier, definitely feels like a middle finger to players of the original game who were given access to new heroes for free. 

Especially since grinding to that level does still take fairly long. While it does help that there are challenges and whatnot made available to boost your level, it still took me about 2-3 weeks to grind up to level 55, and this is as someone who’s been playing Overwatch 2 every day since it’s release, and completing the three daily challenges and most weekly challenges, at least in the time I’m off work, so of course it’s going to take longer for someone who doesn’t have as much time on their hands or as much dedication as I do to grind out 55 levels.

I think the thing that really gets me about Battle Passes in general is that my first real exposure to this sort of monetization system was in Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled - the 2019 remake of what’s probably my favorite kart racer of all time (and was also developed by Activision, interesting). When CTR: Nitro Fueled came out, it really felt like everything I wanted out of a remake of CTR - the original game now updated with completely redone graphics that resembled the N Sane Trilogy style, with all the original content still intact combined with the tracks from Nitro Kart, a game I don’t have experience with, new tracks altogether, a bigger character roster, more customization options in general and online multiplayer.

For a while, it was my kart racer of choice, and I still think as a remake it’s really solid, but Activision being Activision… they had to ruin it through predatory microtransactions. Not only did they break their promise of not adding microtransactions to the game, but they made the system incredibly grindy in a similar way Overwatch 2 is here - they did offer challenges, but even with those, it would’ve taken a lot of dedication and time to the game to unlock things like new characters that were added through the different events that rolled out during CTR: Nitro Fueled’s first couple years on the market.

But of course, they gave you an alternative way to skip the grind by… just having the items available in the store. Basically, have the “free” way to unlock everything be extremely grindy, railroading people into paying microtransactions for the content. After the first couple events, this outright burned me out so hard that I stopped going back to the game altogether. Which sucked since I really felt like Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled was a very good remake, but the way Activision handled its monetization system really ended up leaving a sour taste in my mouth.

I’m not sure I would say Overwatch 2’s Battle Pass on its own (keeping in mind there’s… another aspect of Overwatch 2’s monetization I have to cover) is quite as bad as that, but with the monetization system going in that direction, it did remind me of those memories and from the start left me feeling worried about Overwatch 2 going down that same rabbit hole.

And in a way it kind of already has because that’s not even my worst issue with OW 2’s monetization. I mentioned that there was no way to buy currency in the original Overwatch game, meaning you had to grind out loot boxes and hope to obtain coins through them. Well, now you can buy currency, but like the removal of loot boxes itself, that wish was granted on a monkey’s paw.

Overwatch 2 keeps many of the original Overwatch skins for sale, in addition to new ones. Many of them, however, especially the event-based OW 2 skins, aren’t available even in the ‘Premium’ Battle Pass. Meaning you want them, you’ll have to buy them separately.

Problem is… many of the new skins in particular cost upwards to 1900 coins on their own. And, fun fact, to buy Overwatch coins, that starts at $5 for 500. But like many live service games, you do get a slight bonus if you buy more coins in bulk - but even so, your best option to buy skins for 1900 coins is to get 2,200 of them for $20. So if you wanted to buy even just two new skins, there’s a good chance you would have to buy $40 worth of Overwatch coins - which, guess what, was the price of the original game on its own.

And keep in mind, I’m writing this *after* the monetization system was updated somewhat. Recently, it was made so you could buy most cosmetics individually for every hero. But just a week ago or so, there were some skins you couldn’t even buy outside of a bundle - which, by the way, could run up to *2600* coins. Even if you did buy 2200 coins for $20, you would still have to pay at least $5 more for those 500 coins. 

Not only was this sort of monetization predatory, but it’s outright illegal in some countries. Someone on the r/Overwatch subreddit pointed out that in some countries, including Australia and Brazil, it’s illegal to sell ‘bundles’ of items without giving the option to buy those items separately. In addition to that, those bundles were advertised with a discount - which, again, is classified as false advertising in many countries. Interesting how that seemed to change after all that was brought up. By the way, I should mention too that the shop itself doesn’t advertise that you can buy bundled cosmetics on their own, and you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t know to go to the Hero Gallery.

This isn’t to mention that even prices for original Overwatch cosmetics have been raised across the board. For example, regular ‘Epic’ skins cost 250 coins in Overwatch 1. Now, they seem to cost 1000 coins - 4 times the original price. I should mention there’s a couple new types of cosmetics here as well. A ‘Collectibles’ category has been added that’s split up between Souvenirs and Weapon Charms, and I only really bring this up because recently someone pointed out that the in-game ‘Pachimari’ Weapon Charm actually costs more than a real-life Pachimari keychain in the same exact style sold on Blizzard’s actual shop. Yeah… this is a problem.

And this whole issue is even more exacerbated by the fact that, with the removal of loot boxes, you have even less of a chance to obtain coins for free. There is a way to obtain Overwatch coins for free in Overwatch 2, by completing weekly challenges. Problem is, even if you complete all 11 weekly challenges, you only get… 50 coins a week. Other than voice lines which you buy with ‘Legacy’ Coins, the cheapest cosmetics available to buy with Overwatch coins are Victory Poses… which are 300 coins each. So just to get one victory pose, that's a minimum of 6 weeks of grinding those weekly challenges. And keep in mind what I said about skins being at least 1000 coins or so, and… yeah.

Look, I get it, this is a capitalist economy in which, even if Overwatch 2 is offered to be free to play, ActiBlizz is still a large company that needs to pay for game servers, developers, artists, voice actors, and Bobby Cowdick’s fifteenth yacht, but this is beyond over the line. This is definitely an example of taking advantage of people’s FOMO by offering cosmetics and even actual gameplay elements like new heroes by making them excessively difficult to grind for versus offering a price so that ActiBlizz can make an easy buck off of them.

More than anything, this makes me angry purely as a result that, like Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled, Overwatch 2 is a game that could very well easily put a game that I love back into the spotlight. On its own, sure, while it doesn’t necessarily justify being a sequel, again, it still makes decent changes to the core PvP gameplay. But to see it fall into the same predatory monetization schemes that so many modern live service games just ends up adding more controversy as a cherry on top of what’s been already going on with Activision Blizzard for the past few years. 

I do hope that, at the very least, there is more opportunities given to obtain coins without paying real money for them, but… it’s Activision Blizzard and I ain’t holding my breath.

Conclusion

Man, who knew that an update disguised as a sequel would end up making for an over 20 page long review?

To sum things up, Overwatch 2, from a PvP perspective, is about what I expected gameplay-wise. It definitely makes improvements to the original in terms of balancing and at least… some new content, and judging it for what it actually is - an update - I think it does a solid job improving upon the core gameplay.

But to consider this as a ‘sequel’ which it’s being marketed as, those improvements still apply, but especially with the PvE being separated and delayed, Overwatch 2 doesn’t exactly do enough to justify it being labeled as a sequel. I am glad to see that Overwatch 2, at the very least, has been bringing more attention to Overwatch, and I think it has the potential to bring back some players who stopped playing the game due to distaste in the game’s direction. But it hasn’t reached it yet, and if anything aspects like the monetization and ActiBlizz’s numerous controversies have only hampered that potential.

But hey, the main attraction of Overwatch 2, the PvE co-op mode, still has yet to come, and maybe in a year or so I’ll give an update to this review after we’ve gotten at least some more PvE content.

Would I say I recommend Overwatch 2? I mean, the Overwatch fan in me wants to say an easy yes, but to be objective, it’s… going to depend. For the majority of Overwatch 1 players that stuck around with the game, you’re most likely going to enjoy Overwatch 2. The team-based gameplay and huge cast of characters is still there with improvements made to the core gameplay that make each hero more viable and less counterpick heavy.

For those who enjoyed Overwatch to any extent at first but fell off the game past 2018 or so due to the direction it went with its balance changes and whatnot, that’s about 50/50. I’ve definitely seen some varying responses from this demographic, especially with some being turned off from Overwatch altogether due to Activision Blizzard’s controversies, which is completely understandable. Again, Overwatch 2 ultimately makes good changes to the core gameplay, but the question for this audience is more of whether or not Overwatch 2 does enough to justify their time. But I’d say if you’re willing to separate the art from the shitty company, it’s worth at least giving Overwatch 2 a shot - playing a few rounds and seeing whether the changes made are enough to bring back what appealed to you about Overwatch in the first place.

And of course, if you just didn’t enjoy Overwatch at all, then yeah, chances are Overwatch 2 isn’t going to win you over. And if that’s the case I’m kind of surprised you actually made it to the end of this review. Or did you just scroll down to the bottom and read the conclusion? Well, regardless, I wish you the best of luck.