Seasonal events in Overwatch became major occasions to look forward to. Christmas, Halloween, Chinese New Year, and several others were transformed into virtual celebrations that had our favourite characters donning gorgeous new outfits and performing charming emotes and victory poses that I couldn’t wait to unlock. It was a game I spent hours upon hours with in university, playing alongside my housemates to earn loot boxes and praying we got the skins we wished for. Spoilers: We never
On the movement front, you receive a 25 percent boost in movement and reloading when you get an elimination. Keep in mind; this does not stack like if you were to use your ultimate as Reaper and wipe out an entire team, you wouldn’t become the Flash. It refreshes with eliminations, so it can come in handy if you need to move or rel
All the while, Twitch streamers are taking a stance against gambling, while Xbox brings HowLongToBeat support into its library to let you know what time investment you’re making before you dive in. Speaking of diving i
There are two at-risk groups that loot boxes exploit: gamblers and collectors. By axing loot boxes, Overwatch2fans.com Overwatch has removed its hook from the first group while simultaneously doubling down on the second one. If you had a desperate need to collect every single skin in the game, you would have been able to do it for much cheaper in the old system. Even if you only want one specific skin for your favorite character, you’ll either have to pay $20 or grind out those weekly challenges and save up. It will only take you 32 weeks to earn enough Coins for one legendary s
I don’t really need an Overwatch story mode or an Overwatch spin-off to exist; I’m happy believing I’d love them if they ever came to life, and I don’t need to test that theory. A single player futuristic Western revenge drama with Ashe and McCree as the leads? Yes please. A Netflix adaptation of Overwatch’s main story with Maisie Williams as Tracer? Sounds amazing – please never make it. The idea of literally any genre of solo game with Mei or Mercy sounds fantastic, but it would never live up to my expectations and I’m much happier in my ignorant hope than in cold, hard real
Assess who the other team is playing. You may need to swap to someone who can counter an enemy hero. For example, D.Va can block out gunfire, but her Defense Matrix will not block any beam like Zarya or the sucking power of Mo
If you’re a free-to-play Overwatch 2 player, you only get 20 items from the seasonal battle pass. Overwatch 2 seasons last nine weeks, so it would take you just over 20 years of consistently completing every battle pass to earn the same number of items I got from Overwatch’s loot boxes. If you’re willing to upgrade to the premium battle pass, which gives you all 80 items, you’ll catch up to me in a little over five years – and it will only cost you $500. I’m doing napkin math here. I haven’t factored in the 60 Coins you can earn a week or whatever we might get for free from seasonal events, but you can see my po
I don’t care for online shooters in general; I’m much happier with a good offline story game most of the time. That’s a big reason why my Overwatch numbers are so low – I’m busy playing through a gripping narrative rather than getting better at playing as D.Va or
Where a lot of hero shooters have characters that either riff on Overwatch or age old tropes, Overwatch’s originality makes it easy to project onto. They still aren’t perfect – we won’t be able to play as a Black woman until Overwatch 2 – but they’re head and shoulders above the competition in terms of what I look for in the genre, even though I never play
In total, I’ve probably played less than ten hours in Overwatch. That’s a pretty pathetic return for an online shooter that’s been out for five years. In fact, ‘an online shooter’ barely does Overwatch justice. For a while, it was the biggest hero shooter in the world, and despite increasing competition, it arguably still is. I know people who have hundreds, if not thousands of hours in Overwatch, and I’m still in single figures. Yet it’s a game I’m always thinking ab
Another aspect is to change heroes based on who is on your team. Select people who work together to aid them properly. Mercy works well as a healer for Reinhardt or Pharah, while you can have another healer like Moira taking care of everyone e
Overwatch 2 is not entirely unique in this regard; Call of Duty still does yearly releases, and even the ever-popular Warzone is getting a sequel. Splatoon 3 just enjoyed a stellar launch too , although not without criticism that it too would be better served in the modern environment as an ever-evolving service game rather than a brand new
These days, I’m lucky enough to work in games, and that means even if I don’t get a game code, I know that I’ll be able to write about a game and make money off it. In 2016 when Overwatch released, that wasn’t the case. I’d buy new games, beat them, then flip them at a second hand shop and use that money to buy another game, and so on. That’s a big part of why single player games, with a definitive ending, matter so much to me. The Witcher, The Last of Us, Horizon, Grand Theft Auto 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, and every FIFA from 09 to 19 all entered my life that way. Countless others, too. Despite this, I still have my old Overwatch disc, gathering dust on my shelf as it dwindles in value and my play time trickles up by a few measly minutes every six months or so. There’s just something very compelling about Overwatch’s existence that never quite translates to its gamep
