Overwatch 2 Already Needs a Rez: How Greed Killed Great Gameplay

Overwatch 2 is one of the best gameplay experiences I’ve ever seen. It’s too bad that wonder is enveloped in incompetence and greed.

A few days ago, another writer here at That Park Place was given the task of reviewing Overwatch 2. It’s an odd sequel for sure, and I definitely recommend everyone take the time to read our original assessment by Manu Lopez.

I’m a bit of an Overwatch aficionado myself. I have some crazy stories from playing the original game. I wish I could go into them a bit more, but doing so would out my identity as well as the identities of some others. Let’s just say that when Overwatch came out, I put more time into that game than I had put into a game in a long time. I’m also extraordinarily busy, so spending time with a game isn’t easy. But I worked at one point in the video game industry and I love it, so Overwatch really caught my attention. I played at the master level and even earned a Top 500 icon in one season. Even more fascinating, my journey playing the original Overwatch even saw me connecting with some players who were legitimately professional athletes. We played together consistently and it was an interesting time for sure.

Fast forward to Overwatch 2 and it’s obvious the launch has been a disaster. Even today, I saw a tweet that they’re temporarily taking Torbjorn and Bastion out of the rotation so players can’t use them. Given that there are far worse issues with Overwatch, taking two characters that have existed since the original launch and sidelining them because of technical issues was not a good look for the company.

https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/1579605928495616000

But nothing has been much of a good look for Blizzard and for Overwatch. They’ve screwed up at nearly every level and in every way. Players couldn’t access the game for the first 48 hours. The game was taken offline multiple times to try to fix things. A DDoS attack was alleged but nobody has come forward to claim they were the instigator. Cosmetic prices are insane. The Battle Pass is devoid of really good content. I could go on and on.

Yet the gameplay of Overwatch 2 is astounding. And that’s why all of this is so disappointing. Overwatch 2 had the potential, given its gameplay, to be something special. It actually could have recaptured the joy of the original. Although I always thought the right path forward was to balance 6v6 with hybrid characters that could play multiple roles, they got enough right with the Overwatch 2 gameplay that I think this could have been the biggest game on the planet again if Blizzard could have just gotten out of their own way. The play is fast, the skill levels are much higher, but nothing drives players away like inaccessibility and out-of-control greed.

I do have suggestions for the gameplay, but until all this other stuff is fixed, I doubt it will calm the anger of gamers who have had absolutely enough of Activision Blizzard.

From just a pure gameplay standpoint, there are some changes that need to happen to heroes. Brigitte needs her stun put back on the shield bash, but it can be something as small as a 0.25 second stun. Supports are hard countered currently by dive characters and there needs to be at least one support that can truly shut down the Tracers and the Sombras. Mercy doesn’t feel like she has enough impact on the game — her steady heals and resurrect on a timer mean that she always feels like a constant value provider but never as a hero that can shift the shape of a battle. That’s a hard pill to swallow for Mercy players when many of the DPS and tank heroes can instantly change the direction of the game with an instant headshot. I’d recommend that Mercy be able to resurrect multiple times (although one character at a time)… maybe after she uses her resurrect, she can use it again within the next 7 seconds if another ally dies. Cap it at whatever number Blizzard feels is balanced but given how difficult it is to get a resurrect, having that ability for a player to really make an insane series of resurrects at perfect angles would feel much better.

I can keep going, but essentially the game is better than it has been in years. Some changes are needed, but overall I can see players hopping in on this and loving it for the next half-decade. It’s just a shame that Blizzard shot themself in the foot by being so darn greedy that it revolted everyone. And it’s just a darn shame that they put so much development time into a failed E-Sport that this “sequel” wasn’t here in 2019. It would have been the appropriate time for this type of content… and it would have taken the world by storm.

They were too busy chasing Uncle McScrooge money instead of being happy with potentially the biggest game on the planet. And for that they’ve been rightly knocked down by a number of pegs. Any company that isn’t happy enough with the chance at hundreds of millions of dollars (maybe even billions), and instead starts dictating what phone company its users can have or forces players to allow their voices recorded, is so far out of reality that you might mistake them for PayPal. For Blizzard, this may actually be the turning point where the company has finally taken so many hits that they can no longer recover. It’s a warning reminder for other companies who believe they’re too large to fail, too big to be defeated by pesky consumers who demand a quality product at a decent price.

Right now, Blizzard needs a resurrect from Mercy, but unlike an ally in Overwatch, there may be none on the way.

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