🤺 Overwatch and Character

Hey hero,

Today's Listening: Overwatch, piano edition

How many Overwatch characters can you name right now?

I haven't played ever since day 2 of Overwatch 2 coming out and I can still recall almost every single one.

A hot (not so hot) take: Overwatch, from launch to about 1 year in, was the best Overwatch ever was. The community was thriving, there was no established meta, people would play all Mercy because it was funny...and the characters were so iconic.

They are Overwatch.

Now maybe this is my bias because I was watching this game for 2 years before it came out, and fantasized getting a beta key...But, blinking around like a nut as Tracer, bouncing off walls as Lucio, being comically edgy as Reaper...The fantasy of being that character was infectious.

There was so much love that went into this game, and the community loved it right back. The game had character, it was something wholly its own (pushes TF2 away). Every time there was a new character on the horizon, people were absolutely hyped (remember Sombra?)

But then restrictions started getting introduced (2-2-2 and single hero) and the professional scene grew in prominence.

Now when Overwatch 2 came out, what happened?

Well by then, the base game had run itself ragged. It was a solved game, the players knew how it worked, and a meta was established. People were discouraged from playing their favorite character if they were suboptimal, creating a suboptimal play environment. And it is no fun to grind a golden gun for Hanzo and then told you can't play Hanzo.

Overwatch 2 was supposed to give us a story mode, for the characters. And it wasn't there.

It was supposed to shake up the gameplay formula. It ended up feeling worse.

Why did this happen? I assume because they went from being a character based game to a competitive game.

Where the characters are pawns, not people.

And in that moment, Overwatch died.