Greed meets Ambitions

In October 2022 Blizzard released Overwatch 2 in Early Access as successor to Overwatch, shutting down the original game. It should modernize the game and deepen the lore by adding story missions. The story missions were first postponed, then canceled entirely, while the modernization was not well received. They changed the matches from 6vs6 to 5vs5 and locked all cosmetics and new heroes behind a paywall. For the 5vs5 mode they removed one tank slot per team and increased the heroes’ stats with the goal to speed up the games. To compensate for the missing tank, more covers were added to new maps. They also introduced additional game modes in the following years.

In contrast to the first Overwatch, the game now was free to play, relying entirely on the in-game shop. The loot boxes were removed, but a battle pass introduced instead. New heroes were part of the battle pass as a free-tier reward. Cosmetics could only be acquired through the battle pass or with real money in the in-game shop.

Even when the original game was stale as there weren’t many updates the previous years (in favour of developing Overwatch 2), the new release wasn’t well received by the community. The change to more aggressive monetization and faster gameplay was criticized by the players, also the cancellation of story missions after launch. The question was what Blizzard had been doing all these years, as Overwatch 2 was barely different from the first one.

The release of Marvel Rivals two years later with a better monetization system where no characters were locked behind a battle pass, focus on 6vs6 and of course the established Marvel IP didn’t help keeping Overwatch 2 popular either. Even today Marvel Rivals has double the players than Overwatch.

Revive early 2026

With the start of Season 1 in February 2026 Blizzard introduced a lot of changes to the game. The first change visible to players is the renaming from Overwatch 2 to just Overwatch again. This should express the fact that Overwatch is a constantly evolving and developed game.

With this, they released 10 new heroes, added sub-roles with their own passives and started a story arc. This story arc will span the whole year over six seasons and is about the terrorist organisation Talon. Additionally they reworked the interface and the social features, especially the honor system. Lastly, they unlocked every hero and removed them from the battle pass.

The monetization is still aggressive in pricing. A skin can cost easily over 30 Euros up to more then 90 Euros, which I find rather expensive. At least loot boxes are back, so players have a chance to get the skins for free.

How I got into the game

When I saw the first trailer of Overwatch back in 2014, the game hooked me instantly. I liked the art style, the lore seemed nice and hero shooters were mostly unknown until then. There was Team Fortress, but it is more of a class-based shooter than a hero shooter. With Battleborn and Paragon, there were two competitors combining class-based shooters with the hero system of MOBAs like League of Legends. The first one started rather well with around 12,000 concurrent players in open beta, but this number dropped rapidly to around 250 after Overwatch’s release. Paragon never left beta, even though it wasn’t unsuccessful. Epic reworked it after one year, a move the community didn’t like. Finally it was discontinued in favour of shifting development to the skyrocketing Fortnite.

Neither game ever made it onto my radar, as Overwatch got my whole attention. On release I bought the game — it wasn’t free to play back then. There wasn’t any story in the game itself — it was only told outside through videos and comics, with the exception of seasonal events like Junkenstein. Overwatch was just a fun hero shooter that was well balanced and fun to play. The games were short compared to a MOBA game back then. A League of Legends match was around 45 minutes in 2014, Overwatch was less than 15 minutes. So the ideal game to hop into and have some fun. But you could also play it competitively, as the heroes had enough depth to learn strategies, movement and tactics.

There was even an E-Sports league back then fully supported, organised and funded by Blizzard. They created teams for large cities to deepen the connection between fans and teams. The plan was also to have the games played physically in one of the competitors’ cities. The plan sounded solid, but after the first years, Covid-19 made physical matches impossible. In Combination with some other questionable decisions by Blizzard, the popularity of the Overwatch League dropped and it was finally canceled at the end of 2023 with a big loss for Blizzard. But I liked having a major league, even though I had no favourite team myself.

I’m hooked again

Some weeks ago I saw Overwatch somewhere in the Steam Store. Until then I hadn’t realised that the game was on Steam. I got curious when I saw the good recent reviews and my search showed that the game runs really well on Linux. I installed it and instantly felt at home. First of all, I could link my Battle.net account, unlocking all my previous skins. The interface is a little different from the original Overwatch and I find it not intuitive. Especially the game mode select is a wall of buttons I still have to figure out.

Also there are many new heroes since I left the game I have to get to know and learn. Some seem really nice and I like that they haven’t cannibalized existing heroes. My all-time favourite D.Va still is a viable pick, as well as some other heroes like Reinhardt and Mercy. At least that is what I saw in my matches as well as in the competitive Overwatch Championship Series (OWCS), the more open and loose successor of the discontinued Overwatch League (OWL). The OWCS is less professional, but still an “official” tournament with coverage on Twitch and YouTube. I haven’t found any German coverage yet, but the English one was really nice.

Another addition I’m really happy about is the progress of story. With each season there are new story videos and comics released to drive the narrative forward. The lore was always a big plus for me. I like sci-fi and (Post-)Cyberpunk. There were the dark Omnic Crisis times, the corporations, the tech and conflicts. But there is also the fight for a better future, the fights we as players do every day.

So I’m back in the game, currently just playing unranked games solo to get freshened up. But maybe I’ll go competitive in some days or weeks. I’m a little scared that the players are way more skilled there and I get flamed all the time, most likely because I’m really that bad. Usually I don’t play competitive, but maybe this is my chance to get competitive again after 20 years?