Let me preface this by saying I am a recent Overwatch player. I didn’t play Overwatch 1. I only started playing Overwatch when the second iteration came out in October 2022. So when I say Overwatch, I mean Overwatch 2. I’ve been playing Overwatch 2 pretty much everyday since it launched last year. I’m not the best at first person shooters especially ones that are highly competitive but I do actually really enjoy Overwatch. 

The facts

Overwatch is a video game by Blizzard Entertainment back in 2016. It had its second iteration come out, as mentioned, in 2022. Overwatch is essentially an Online Multiplayer First Person shooter game. It’s available on PC, Xbox, Playstation and Nintendo Switch. There are two teams of 5, previously 6, that battle it out to achieve the main objective of the game mode. And no, the objective isn’t only shooting the enemy team. Unless it’s a deathmatch. 

When it first launched back in 2016, there were two teams of 6 that went head to head. 2 support heroes, 2 damage heroes, and 2 tank heroes. They changed that in Overwatch 2 getting rid of the 2nd tank hero to make the game less chaotic. 

Support heroes have abilities that support the team such as healing for the team, anti-heals for the other enemy team, speed boosts for the team, Team cleanse and the like. Damage heroes that have abilities that capitalize on dealing damage. So lots of bullets, and high damage attacks. Tank heroes have abilities that let them mitigate damage, shield their team and essentially create space between their team and the other team. 

There were essentially 4 game modes in Overwatch 1. Control, where teams fight each other to capture a single point. Escort, where you escort a payload to the end of the map. Hybrid, where the map starts with a point to capture and from that point you escort a payload to the end of the map. 2CP, which is Control but with two points to capture. 

Overwatch 2 did away with 2CP and replaced it with Push. Push is essentially the two teams battling to control a robot that pushes the objective to the end of the map, which is essentially the enemy spawn point. And a recent addition to the game modes is Flash point, where both teams fight to capture one center point then get directed to a new point that they must capture again and so on. Teams must capture 3 points to secure a win.

Those are only the official game modes that are included in a game of Overwatch Competitive, which is the ranked PvP game, and Quickplay, which is the unranked PvP game. There’s also arcade mode with different rotating smaller game modes which include Death match, 3v3, Capture the Flag and other modes that may come out during a season.

Focusing in on Overwatch 2, The game has had 6 seasons so far. Seasons essentially marks different time periods in the game. A season usually lasts 9 weeks so a little over 2 months. Each season comes with a new theme, battle pass, skins, and either a new hero or a new map. Unlike its predecessor, Overwatch 2 is free to play. Which means there alot of in-game purchases, and I mean a lot.

The battle pass, and skins I mentioned earlier that come with every season? Yeah You have to pay for that. Now there are ways to earn some in game currency but it’ll only take you so far. I bought the Overwatch season 2 battle pass and was able to accumulate enough coins each succeeding season to not shell out money to buy the next battle pass until Season 5. But I was out of luck this recent season so I paid for the season 6 battle pass. 

With this 6th season of the game, Overwatch 2 I’d say has had so much content added onto it. As mentioned earlier this season brought in a new game mode called Flashpoint. Season 6 also brought in a new Support Hero for the game named Illari. And we can’t forget about the story missions that you have to pay for to play sadly. 

The sheer amount of content that came with the new season, in my opinion, should have been the amount that came out with the Overwatch 2 game launch. As someone who was new to the game back in October 2022, it was still new and fun for me but my friends who have played the previous game found it more of the same with just one less tank, a different game mode, new UI and a lack of what they called: “Loot boxes”

Season 6 launched on August 10, August 11 here in the Philippines, and at the same time became available on the widely used game distribution service Steam. For the longest time you had to download Blizzard’s own game distribution service BattleNet to play the game on PC now you get the Free game on Steam. That brought about some problems that I’ll get back to in a bit. 

The community

Now with every video game, there is a community of players that grows with it. Overwatch is one of those games. I personally am thankful to consider myself part of the community more actively participating in KarQ’s Community. 

KarQ is a veteran twitch streamer and Youtuber in the Overwatch community since the Overwatch 1 days. He makes fun and educational content on Overwatch. You can visit his YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/@KarQ or his twitch channel, https://www.twitch.tv/karq 

There are alot of content creators in the Overwatch community. Some of them are or used to be professional ESports players. Large names with a large following who still play the game everyday include Emongg, Jay3, Frogger, August, Aspen and OasisonOverwatch just to name a few. 

Overwatch also has its own ESports competitions. Overwatch League and the Overwatch World Cup. Both are highly competitive with one of them probably ceasing to exist in the near future. Sorry Overwatch League. That’s a whole other can of beans that we’re not getting into.

Overwatch’s player base I’d say is massive and spans all over the world. You can find them discussing things in various discords, sub reddits, YouTube comments sections, Twitch Chats etc. 

With every positive comment for the game however, there are heaps of complaints. And Overwatch has its fair share of haters. Ranging from frustrated players who love the game and were holding on to old promises to trolls hate bombing the reviews section of the game on Steam. 

The broken promise

Back in 2019, then Game Director Jeff Kaplan promised the Overwatch community an amazing PvE type game to come along with the release of Overwatch 2. A PvE with fully developed skill trees for each hero and engaging missions and story for players to indulge in. It was an amazing dream. But that’s all it ever was. And now, it is a promise that the new Game Director Aaron Keller had to break. 

PvE did not launch with Overwatch 2. Jeff Kaplan left Overwatch in 2021 and it seems like the idea of the PvE left with him. All the veteran Overwatch 1 players looked high and low for the PvE and finally Aaron Keller addressed them prior to the Season 6 release and sadly, it was bad news. 

The promised fully fleshed out story mode of Overwatch wasn’t coming. The skill tree was put to the wayside and essentially the dream wasn’t going to come into fruition. The Overwatch team did what they can and released 4 story missions with Season 6 called: The Invasion. They even had John Cena, yes the wrestler John Cena, promote it. It wasn’t enough though for the heartbroken players. 

Players took to their respective community places and vented out their frustration and of course, when the game launched on Steam, the game was hate-bombed in the reviews section. Complaints ranging from unreasonable high prices of the Season 6 story missions, the very expensive cosmetics, and the broken promise of PvE swarmed the game. 

The game now sits with an overwhelmingly negative rating on steam with people who are giving valid complaints buried by people who just want to join the bandwagon and troll the game. It’s sad to see but the hate is somewhat justified. 

People were essentially duped and led to believe that their beloved game was getting an upgrade with so much content, amazing new features and it was all taken back. Assets made for the infamous PvE were reused for these annoyingly expensive story missions that came out with Season 6. It was essentially the cherry on top of a sundae of over priced cosmetics, and battlepasses. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I get it. While the Overwatch team is doing their best to pick up the pieces, move forward and try to still give you a great game. And kudos to them really. The fanbase is still angry and reeling from the lack of PvE. While right now it’s mostly become a meme to troll the game on Steam. There really is no other way than forward for the Overwatch franchise.

I wasn’t one of the people who was promised a PvE and I legitimately love Overwatch. My friends who were promised PvE back in 2019 hate the fact that the PvE was ripped away from them but they still play Overwatch everyday. 

While the anger from lack of PvE is there along with a lot of frustration and annoyance because of some of the bugs, rank system, over priced cosmetics, hero balances. The old fans still play the game. New fans like me still do play the game. All the players have their eyes on Overwatch to see what their next move is going to be. 

As a gamer that isn’t the best with first-person shooters, I love Overwatch. I didn’t think I’d love it this much. The cosmetics are expensive, there are some bugs, ranked is a mess and some heroes are insanely overpowered but I still play it. I can’t tell you why I like this game so much. I just do. Of all the FPS games I’ve tried, Valorant, Apex, Call of Duty, there’s just something about Overwatch. 

Despite all the anger and frustration that this game does bring me sometimes, there’s something about Overwatch that has me coming back every single day. While Overwatch moves forward from this one mess and gearing up to face another, sorry Overwatch League you get another mention here, I know that I will still be playing this game. I’ll still probably have my own complaints but I’ll still play everyday. 

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