Overwatch 2: 10 Key Details From BlizzConline You Missed

The whole premise of Overwatch 2 is to offer a campaign. It’s not going to reinvent multiplayer, which is already a successful esport and will likely stay the exact same aside from the kind of regular updates we get now. All I want is for Overwatch 2’s campaign to be a blown-up version of Archives, though, as opposed to something that is emphatically single-player or something that incentivizes over-competing. I want it to give you plenty of opportunities to pull off a sick Barrage, but I don’t want Valkyrie or Coalescence to become pointless vs bots with stupid AI. I want there to be actual reasons for choosing to play as Winston instead of Hanzo, or Lucio instead of Tracer. I want maps that allow for the kind of absurd synergy you see in Assault on Volskaya, as opposed to just arbitrary ult-spamming in the middle of a wave-based minig


I booted up Overwatch for the first time in a few months last night and it wasn’t awful. I mean, it was frustrating, but I had at least one team who genuinely cared about the objective and we won two matches in a row. For what it’s worth, I only really play Competitive or seasonal co-op events - Quick Play and Arcade aren’t for
There’s a few new options - most notably the presence of an in-game shop and battle pass. Loot boxes are gone for good, with premium currency and seasonal progression now used to earn skins and other cosmetics. Time will tell whether this model works, but Blizzard isn’t shy about putting it front and centre. Aside from that everything here is basically the same, and that includes graphical settings and other such options that I forgot to take screenshots of before being locked out of the review build. Trust me on this one.


You got a myriad of branching pathways and areas to flank, defensive elevated sniper positions, and high-ground walkways and platforms where snipers, Bastions, and Torbs can set camp. The map is elaborate enough for veterans to exploit but palatable and closed-in enough for newer players not to feel overwhel

Overwatch will forever and always be a shooter classic, but my heart sinks when I think about how its once pristine legacy has been dragged through the dirt in service of a future that right now still seems so unclear. I formed so many memories around long nights experimenting with new heroes or diving into seasonal events with life-long friends by my side. Few games have ever managed to ignite that sense of passion within me, and that alone is an achievement worth celebrating. Now, as the servers prepare to switch over for good, I’m left mourning the empty void that once defined an entire part of my life.

It was the biggest shooter in the world for a long time. Blizzard eagerly celebrated new player milestones on social media, while seasonal events became an all-encompassing occasion in the shooter space before the days of battle passes and live service updates. It was both ahead of its time and constrained by the formula it existed within, as additional game modes introduced as part of big updates and quarterly events never lived up to the base experience it was built upon. Junkenstein’s Revenge, Overwatch Archives, and Winter Wonderland were great fun, but fighting against bullet sponge AI wasn’t what this game was about, and hoping to expand on this universe only served to highlight its shortcomings.

Part of me is curious to see where new modes and additions will appear when the first big seasonal update rolls around, or if Blizzard has something more experimental planned for a hero shooter that is relatively by-the-numbers right now. But when it comes to the user interface experience, I gotta give this thing top marks.

Overwatch defined my first steps into adulthood. I was in my first year of university when it came out, and remember watching my flatmates jump into the beta as they hyped it up as the next big thing. I’d never played a Blizzard game before, and at the time it was an untouchable bastion of goodwill defined by countless classics. Not so much these days . This was its first new IP in decades, and it had all the ingredients to be a masterpiece.

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.


Overwatch’s biggest strength is how good its characters feel to play. Unfortunately, playing them online can feel unrewarding, specifically because of how toxic its player base is. Fortunately, Overwatch 2 has a unique opportunity to rectify this by offering the same high-octane gunplay without forcing you to hemorrhage SR purely because people on your team are being total dicks. It doesn’t need a complex story, or a million maps, or anything like that. All it truly needs is a basic, solid structure like Mass Effect 3 had, where you can run wild with your favourite heroes and use abilities to your heart’s cont