A lot has changed in this year since Overwatch officially launched on Steam, some of my original negative points on this game now no longer apply. As people still regularly see this review and give awards, I believe it necessary to update this and paint a picture more accurate to today's experience. The original review is still untouched in its entirety below, not just for archival purposes but as a reminder of what Blizzard thought was acceptable. Do not forget the state this game was in.

#1 - Heroes are now free, just like Overwatch used to be

If you log in to the game today, everything is available to you, exactly as it should be. Competitive integrity relied on this, as I predicted in my original review the new characters added would be overtuned and the meta in each comp season would rely heavily on their usage. Doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to figure that out, and I genuinely think the situation with Mauga (where there was literally a clip of a player buying the pass mid-match to unlock him to get the win) [x.com] is the perfect example here.

Good riddance to this system, I'm not going to sit here and praise them for removing it, it never should have existed in the first place.

What I CAN praise and I'm happy to say is the hero design is as good as ever. Visually, kit wise, voice acting, its all top shelf stuff you'd expect from these talented designers. After playing recently I've never been more excited to play DPS with Venture, most fun I've had in years (outside of tanking lol).

#2 - The battlepass, and the new NEW approach to cosmetics

As I said previously, never really been one to have strong feelings towards a battlepass system. I'm not particularly one to fall into the FOMO, less so on here because I already have years worth of free lootbox skins.

From what I've seen, they've tightened up the battlepass a bit and removed some of the shockingly bad fluff. Free players seem to get more opportunities for premium currency now which is an improvement at least. I really can't measure it properly as I completely stopped playing the second I got locked out of heroes.

The store seems about as bad as it was when Overwatch 2 lauched, both the individual and bundle prices are still extortionate and insanely predatory. I hate that this is becoming the norm in the industry, but honestly who am I to tell you what to do with your money, this keeps happening because clearly people are more than happy to drop £20+ for a character skin in a first person game. Idk man, you're not going to catch me doing that but so long as that shop never directly effects the balance of the game then I can just ignore it and I commend others who do the same - not just for Overwatch but for any game with overpriced cosmetics.

In Summary

This game finds itself in a much better place today than it did a year ago, and with talks of 6v6 currently underway it actually feels like they're listening.

I'm not going to sit here and hope with blind optimism, but as it stands right now I'm having fun occassionally playing again and actually got back into some competitive matches.

Will Overwatch 2 ever match the magic of the original? Probably not.

Can Overwatch 2 be a good game? Absolutely, given the time, care and hard work.

Nothing would make me happier to see this game turn around completely and flourish again, only time will tell if those working on it make the push in that direction.

_______________________________________________________________________


I picked up the game in 2016 and was instantly hooked like so many others. Overwatch remained my favourite shooter for years - even during the draught of content on the run up to OW2.

While it retains its charming design, wonderful cast of characters and some of the best multiplayer maps I've ever played on, OW2 brought a few enormous fundamental downgrades that leave it critically flawed. Let me explain;

#1 - Heroes in battlepass

The biggest change, this alone put all the nails in the coffin.

Overwatch is a game based around hero picks and team synergy. Every single character brings unique advantages, pairing well with some and poorly with others. Overwatch used to have a few heroes introduced every year completely free for everyone to play. Overwatch 2 now expects you to either grind to unlock new characters, or pony up cash for the Battlepass to play them on release (or £9 each for old characters).

This doesn't sound game breaking at a first glance, but now consider the fact you can queue into competitive games without the full roster of characters.

This is a core gameplay feature, in a competitive game, behind a paywall.

How can there be fair competition if one team has more options than the other? And purely because they paid for it? Sounds a bit like pay to win, but I'll let you decide for yourself.

#2 - The battlepass itself, and the new approach to cosmetics

I've never really been opposed to the idea of battlepass systems, but compared to other games OW2's passes are a joke. Each pass has 80 levels of stuff, usually 8 skins (with a very nice customisable one at the end) and a bunch of other stuff to pad it out - as is the norm. This filler stuff ranges from titles and nameplates to emotes. I believe they've recently added credits in there, which is a great step forward, but doesn't undo the aforementioned critical misstep of including core gameplay features behind a paywall.

Cosmetics have always been a huge part of Overwatch, the skins are designed by insanely talented artists with equally talented modellers. These skins continue to be fantastic, but the prices are insulting. Legendary skins (ones that aren't just recolours) are on average around £20+ each.

These used to be obtained via lootboxes, you'd get one every level up which tends to be insanely frequent. In my time playing I only bought boxes on a few occasions and still managed to get most skins for most characters. Most people's argument for them bringing in the store was that the generous lootbox system was losing them money - this is simply wrong. In 2019 (3 years after launch) Overwatch had already made $1billion via lootboxes.

There's now essentially no free way to get skins, unless you want to grind challenges for months on end for a single legendary.

#3 - The PvE

I never had too much interest in the PvE - but it was the driving point behind the whole idea of Overwatch 2.

That's what we were told anyway, it ended up just being a bait and switch to implement all these new monetisation systems. Hell, even after the "cancellation" of PvE we're still getting PvE missions? Except they're now being sold as individual packs, just another way to squeeze your wallet.

In Summary

If you like competitive shooters - Overwatch 2 has no competitive integrity.

If you like collecting cosmetics - Overwatch 2 expects you to hand over your entire wallet

The game is fun, I still feel the experience I love so much in there, it's just damaged by such intrusive greed I can't recommend it to anyone.

[h1] EDIT (October 15th, 2024): [/h1] A lot has changed in this year since Overwatch officially launched on Steam, some of my original negative points on this game now no longer apply. As people still regularly see this review and give awards, I believe it necessary to update this and paint a picture more accurate to today's experience. [b] The original review is still untouched in its entirety below, not just for archival purposes but as a reminder of what Blizzard thought was acceptable. Do not forget the state this game was in. [/b] [b] #1 - Heroes are now free, just like Overwatch used to be [/b] If you log in to the game today, everything is available to you, exactly as it should be. Competitive integrity relied on this, as I predicted in my original review the new characters added would be overtuned and the meta in each comp season would rely heavily on their usage. Doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to figure that out, and I genuinely think the situation with Mauga [url=https://x.com/GibbaOw/status/1737300862475608075] (where there was literally a clip of a player buying the pass mid-match to unlock him to get the win) [/url] is the perfect example here. Good riddance to this system, I'm not going to sit here and praise them for removing it, it never should have existed in the first place. What I CAN praise and I'm happy to say is the hero design is as good as ever. Visually, kit wise, voice acting, its all top shelf stuff you'd expect from these talented designers. After playing recently I've never been more excited to play DPS with Venture, most fun I've had in years (outside of tanking lol). [b] #2 - The battlepass, and the [strike] new [/strike] NEW approach to cosmetics [/b] As I said previously, never really been one to have strong feelings towards a battlepass system. I'm not particularly one to fall into the FOMO, less so on here because I already have years worth of free lootbox skins. From what I've seen, they've tightened up the battlepass a bit and removed some of the shockingly bad fluff. Free players seem to get more opportunities for premium currency now which is an improvement at least. I really can't measure it properly as I completely stopped playing the second I got locked out of heroes. The store seems about as bad as it was when Overwatch 2 lauched, both the individual and bundle prices are still extortionate and insanely predatory. I hate that this is becoming the norm in the industry, but honestly who am I to tell you what to do with your money, this keeps happening because clearly people are more than happy to drop £20+ for a character skin in a first person game. Idk man, you're not going to catch me doing that but so long as that shop never directly effects the balance of the game then I can just ignore it and I commend others who do the same - not just for Overwatch but for any game with overpriced cosmetics. [b] In Summary [/b] This game finds itself in a much better place today than it did a year ago, and with talks of 6v6 currently underway it actually feels like they're listening. I'm not going to sit here and hope with blind optimism, but as it stands right now I'm having fun occassionally playing again and actually got back into some competitive matches. Will Overwatch 2 ever match the magic of the original? Probably not. Can Overwatch 2 be a good game? Absolutely, given the time, care and hard work. Nothing would make me happier to see this game turn around completely and flourish again, only time will tell if those working on it make the push in that direction. _______________________________________________________________________ [h1] Overwatch 2 has no respect for you, it's an attempt to pry open your wallet while masquerading as the game it used to be. [/h1] I picked up the game in 2016 and was instantly hooked like so many others. Overwatch remained my favourite shooter for years - even during the draught of content on the run up to OW2. While it retains its charming design, wonderful cast of characters and some of the best multiplayer maps I've ever played on, OW2 brought a few [i]enormous fundamental downgrades[/i] that leave it critically flawed. Let me explain; [b] #1 - Heroes in battlepass [/b] The biggest change, this alone put all the nails in the coffin. Overwatch is a game based around hero picks and team synergy. Every single character brings unique advantages, pairing well with some and poorly with others. Overwatch used to have a few heroes introduced every year completely free for everyone to play. Overwatch 2 now expects you to either grind to unlock new characters, or pony up cash for the Battlepass to play them on release (or £9 each for old characters). This doesn't sound game breaking at a first glance, but now consider the fact [b]you can queue into competitive games without the full roster of characters.[/b] This is a core gameplay feature, in a competitive game, behind a paywall. How can there be fair competition if one team has more options than the other? And purely because they paid for it? Sounds a bit like pay to win, but I'll let you decide for yourself. [b] #2 - The battlepass itself, and the new approach to cosmetics [/b] I've never really been opposed to the idea of battlepass systems, but compared to other games OW2's passes are a joke. Each pass has 80 levels of stuff, usually 8 skins (with a very nice customisable one at the end) and a bunch of other stuff to pad it out - as is the norm. This filler stuff ranges from titles and nameplates to emotes. I believe they've recently added credits in there, which is a great step forward, but doesn't undo the aforementioned critical misstep of including core gameplay features behind a paywall. Cosmetics have always been a huge part of Overwatch, the skins are designed by insanely talented artists with equally talented modellers. These skins continue to be fantastic, but the prices are insulting. Legendary skins (ones that aren't just recolours) are on average around £20+ each. These used to be obtained via lootboxes, you'd get one every level up which tends to be insanely frequent. In my time playing I only bought boxes on a few occasions and still managed to get most skins for most characters. Most people's argument for them bringing in the store was that the generous lootbox system was losing them money - this is simply wrong. In 2019 (3 years after launch) Overwatch had already made $1billion via lootboxes. There's now essentially no free way to get skins, unless you want to grind challenges for months on end for a single legendary. [b] #3 - The PvE [/b] I never had too much interest in the PvE - but it was the driving point behind the whole idea of Overwatch 2. That's what we were told anyway, it ended up just being a bait and switch to implement all these new monetisation systems. Hell, even after the "cancellation" of PvE we're still getting PvE missions? Except they're now being sold as individual packs, just another way to squeeze your wallet. [b] In Summary [/b] If you like competitive shooters - Overwatch 2 has no competitive integrity. If you like collecting cosmetics - Overwatch 2 expects you to hand over your entire wallet The game is fun, I still feel the experience I love so much in there, it's just damaged by such intrusive greed I can't recommend it to anyone.