There was a time only a few short years ago when Overwatch was untouchable. Blizzard’s hero shooter was a fresh, energetic entry in a genre that was slowly but surely growing stale. The beloved developer saw this gap in the market and pounced upon it, delivering a diverse multiplayer experience that would hold our attention for years to come. Fast forward to 2021, and the picture appears infinitely more bl

Finally, while Blizzard did share some updates on the mobile game Diablo Immortal, no release for the game was given. There is another testing phase planned for later this year, similar to the technical alpha held last Decemb

That’s an issue for another day though. Today, I want to focus on the Archives skins, particularly those of our queer characters, Soldier 76 and Tracer. The Archives event is running until April 27, and brings eight new skins to the game, each designed around a given character’s cultural history. Both Soldier 76 and Tracer are included in the event, but it’s extremely telling that neither of their cultural histories includes any reference to queerness. Soldier 76 is becoming Soldier 1776 which, I admit, is a good pun. The American soldier is donning the jacket of the Revolutionaries, these days probably best known from the musical Hamil

Overwatch 2 is free to play, so in theory it’s not too much of an issue that it’s an entirely new game. Splatoon and Call of Duty both charge full price for their updates on what came before, and Overwatch 2 at least avoids that. But it doesn’t mitigate how dated Overwatch 2’s structure already feels, and how much that contrasts with how the initial game felt at launch. Overwatch is a hero shooter, and part of its popularity has been the affection for its heroes, not to mention how differently each of its roster plays. There are characters with pistols, shotguns, bazookas, ice blasters, revolvers, sniper rifles, mech suits, and bows and arrows, but whatever the weapon is, Blizzard seems dead set on aiming them all directly at its f

Unlocking old heroes only applies to new players, but going forward the battle pass will come into play. With that, free players will need to grind to unlock heroes, while premium players will get them automatically. It seems to go against Overwatch’s greatest strength that some players can have access to so many more heroes, and so much earlier. Of course, it might seem like Overwatch cannot win. I’ve just complained that it is opting for the sequel model, and now I’m criticising it for going down the seasonal route. Maybe that’s just it though. Maybe Overwatch cannot win. It was the perfect game at the perfect time, and it feels impossible to think it might ever recapture that ma

They wouldn’t even be the exception to the rule, either. Mercy’s skin is based on the history of healers, taking inspiration from Florence Nightingale, while Zenyatta’s is a deep sea diver because… well, I’m not sure. It looks cool, I gu

As the years moved on and seasonal events began to repeat, I fell out of love with Overwatch. I returned following the surprise debut of Archives, which promised a more intricate delving into the lore behind my favourite operatives, but it was a surface level exploration of narrative elements that simply didn’t do enough. A few skins caught my eye, tempting me to indulge in free loot boxes and to grind for a couple alongside friends who returned for similar reas

Overwatch skins are nothing more than costumes to dress your favourite characters up in, so it seems silly for someone like me, who only plays rarely and not even as Soldier 76, to care about them so much. But it’s not really about whether the skins look good, whether I’d want them, and whether they’re better or worse than other sets. It’s that Blizzard had the opportunity to embrace the queer culture behind Soldier 76 and Tracer, a culture the company is happy to cater to in only the most minor of ways, and instead ducked it. A skin that was unabashedly queer was an opportunity to reinforce the diversity Blizzard often talks about, but Overwatch deliberately let the opportunity pass

Overwatch 2 is right around the corner, and even though it shouldn’t really exist , there’s an air of excitement around its launch. The first Overwatch completely reinvented the online shooter space when it launched in 2016, and deserves to be spoken about in the same breath as gaming’s all time greats. It was fresh, fast, and fiendishly compelling, but the very fact a sequel exists highlights how much Overwatch has fallen off the pace. The latest revelation about the hero roster only underscores this furt

Overwatch led the way for the likes of Fortnite , Apex Legends , Paladins, Bleeding Edge, and Valorant . Even Destiny 2 seems to have taken as much from Overwatch as it has the original Destiny. But what those games have in common is the exact thing that stands Overwatch 2 apart for the wrong reasons. Sequels to Fortnite, Apex Legends, and https://overwatch2Fans.Com Valorant will never arrive - instead the games continue to evolve with constant updates, new battle passes, and frequent seasonal events pulling you back in. Even Destiny 2, though a sequel itself, is abandoning that model in order to keep building and evolving as it