Overwatch 2: 5 Things We’re Excited To See (& 5 Things The Game Still Needs)

Still, it would at least make sense to allow for cross-play across the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch servers. This would open the doors for an even more vast pool of potential players, essentially ensuring you won’t deal with ghost town lobbies. There is a likelihood Blizzard will ultimately implement this, but as of now, it’s just a ru

First up is the main menu, which is a real snazzy bit of presentation. The first thing you’ll notice is how much the colour scheme has changed, with many of the tones updated to feel more modern and grounded compared to the cartoonish first game. There’s still plenty of room for silliness, but the orchestral score is even more soaring and extravagant, doing its best to emphasise how this is a glorious return to form despite most of the game playing and looking the same. First impressions count though, and Overwatch 2 doesn’t disappoint.

Overwatch 2 is a very iterative sequel, and thus many of its menus will feel very familiar to those who spent time with its predecessor. Because of this stylistic choice I’m going to work through the highlights and Overwatch2Base.Com point out all of their biggest draws and flaws before deciding on an overall score for the entire package. Yes, some serious science has gone into this idea.

In the absence of playing any actual games in Overwatch 2, I had a decent amount of fun staring at its menus as the search time for a match moved into the double digits. There was a weird smugness to seeing the years of work I put into the first entry immediately reflected in the updated client, which to me looks slicker and better presented than anything that came before it.

Ninja Theory’s Bleeding Edge is a brawler take on the hero, objective-based online world. Each character has their own look and abilities that make you stand out. While each individual has something to offer, it is split between the classic archetypes of support, tank, and hea

Overwatch 2 is a strange game to review. It’s a free-to-play live-service experience that depends on a consistent audience to find games and progress through its battle pass. As you might have already guessed, there were only so many games journalists in the world to populate its servers as we rocketed towards the embargo. Thus I am left in a bit of a pickle.

While there was a ton of gameplay for the Null Sector units appearing in Overwatch 2, a few appeared only in concept art shots. One illustration shows a line of various Omnics, the largest a hulking gorilla-like bot looming over the r

The game’s initial trailer also revealed the inclusion of customizable abilities, which will likely include tweakable visual flair for hero Ultimates. This array of personalized features should make for an even more chaotic and dynamic experience in O

If you want that hero shooter vibe with a more open landscape, Apex Legends has your back. Respawn took the popular style of games like PUBG and Overwatch and blended them to find itself a successful

Of course, we had awesome women like Mei and Zarya amongst the cast, but there was D.Va, Tracer, and Widowmaker strutting their stuff alongside them. Overwatch was a real sticking point in our development as horny gamers, and a willingness to embrace sexuality in our games and view it as something to no longer be ashamed of. Overwatch was a stepping stone to this point, but a stone covered with the slippery moss of the mid ‘10s Whedonised feminism, where the best way to make a female character strong was to make her sexy too. Putting aside the smut, I was invested in some of the game’s queer ships for years, whether it be through tasteful fanart or brilliantly written fiction that understood these characters better than Blizzard ever will. Pharmercy till I die. You know Overwatch was something special because it made you care, and the relative indifference from Blizzard in the years since is almost upsetting.

Overwatch 2 was announced much too early, likely to pave over controversy at the time surrounding the company and its many scandals. We were given an awkward glimpse at PvE content that wasn’t ready for the spotlight in the slightest, while progression systems linked to certain characters have been dumped entirely in the version coming next month. Blizzard didn’t know what it wanted the sequel to be, and it still doesn’t, so we are stepping hesitantly into a future where I desperately hope this hero shooter can earn its place. The original game is being shut down as it arrives, with its younger sibling intended to replace everything it stood for as heroes, cosmetics, and everything else is carried across as part of a hopefully seamless transition. I’ll miss what is being left behind, and so will many others.

A returning enemy type from BlizzCon 2019, Slicers are little bird-like Omnics that Blizzard internally refers to as «chickens.» These bots seem to come in packs, posing a minor threat on their own but deadly with numbers. Little is known about how they attack players, if at all (these could be another form of «objective units,» which Blizzard discusses in the vid