Review of the Overwatch 2 Beta
My final thoughts on what they showed us in the Overwatch 2 beta. Also my hopes and dreams on the future of game.
Hello Nerds!
Alright, so the beta ended on the 15th of May with no additional information about the game other than the announcement of another beta at some point in the future with additional content coming with it. We’ll have to wait for an event scheduled on June 16th to find out more. Until that time, we will be going back to whatever we were doing before. More competitive games, Elden Ring, more Overwatch 1? For me at least; none until after some life stuff is over. (lol)
So, how did it go? The overall feeling from the content creators, pros and so on… is its a bit of a mixed review. The pros and cons columns will be massively filled discussing many aspects of the game, the dev team’s decisions and Blizzard/Activision as a whole. I’ll probably have a similar structure in this post but I’ll do my best to discuss all the relevant pieces pertaining to what the beta is, and the hopes for the finished game. Anyway here we go.
Format Change
The biggest and most notable feature of this beta was the format change from 6v6 to 5v5 — dropping the additional tank role. This in part is a pretty big change regarding meta builds that have existed in Overwatch since the beginning. Roles were never really set in the game when Overwatch launched initially other than their categories for the characters. Blizzard had made everyone fall into: Tank, Defense, Offense, or Support roles. Offense and Defense characters had some pretty different kits, splitting them up as characters that helped in a fight vs ones meant to frag out. Eventually they just became the DPS and since then some characters had to get changes to their kits, or were left behind in pick rate because they couldn’t be used effectively in most situations. Since then the community developed those roles even more granting them a niche for certain comps and for certain game modes/maps. (Pirate ship Bastion for payload maps, Pharah + Mercy = Pharmacy, so on…)
Tanks, DPS, and Support characters eventually were divided by their kits; making roles like: “Main Tank“, “Off Tank“, “Main DPS“, “Flex DPS“ and so on…
With the 5v5 format eliminating a tank, that niche pick for certain characters can no longer exist. With just one tank; players now have to choose which character best suits the enemy team or ally team composition with their own comfort level. However, can any one of the characters fall off in pick rate because situationally they are not playable? Regarding: maps, different game modes, and team comps, should any tank be ok to pick? I guess we’ll see.
Most of the Tanks received changes and updates in this beta. Orisa more than most had every aspect of her kit changed, and she was honestly my favorite to play. Doomfist lost his upper cut, but became a tank in the process. Reinhart can throw two Flamestrikes instead of one, and Zarya can pop 2 bubbles on herself or teammates, its more of a resource of bubbles instead of locking 1 bubble to herself and teammates. Winston now has an alt fire where he can charge his weapon to shoot electricity for some poke damage, but I think its not terribly effective. Aside from some stat changes and a global passive for Tank rendering knockbacks less effective and lowering the amount of ult generated from healing — Sigma, D.va, and Wrecking ball didn’t receive any changes.
Personally, I noticed Zarya, Roadhog, and D.Va having less play time in my games more than the other characters. During the beta Roadhog did receive a pretty decent update which increased his playability, but this needs to be looked at for all of the tanks going forward. At this stage of development we’ll just have to wait and see if the tanks are well-rounded and balanced enough to be by themselves. Since we saw the Roadhog change happen within a beta, we can assume it was talked about in advance and implemented based on feedback, and so is everyone else. The devs just have to be careful with the tuning because its going to affect the DPS and Support characters regarding teammates and enemies, not forgetting the additional characters that have yet to enter the game, and the balancing required for them. (considering the beta had two balance updates in the middle of it. 2. like… goodness.)
I will say the format change is by far the most welcomed thing by the community, and for me personally.
New Content
Probably the most negatively received aspect of the beta was the lack of content to see and review — answering questions about how development has come after waiting for a release or at least a beta for 3+ years.
(I say 3+ years because Blizzcon 2019 revealed Overwatch 2, so I assume some development had to have already started before the announcement.)
So in terms of new/different content that was brought into the beta consisted of the hyped-up and finally revealed character Sojourn. I think her inclusion in the damage role is a welcomed one, even though she’s pretty similar to other damage character in the game, and has some pretty good potential as a character that can pop-off when given an opportunity. Other than Doomfist dropping from damage and being adapted for the tank role, characters received some love with kit changes.
(Cassidy loses flash and gains a heat seeking grenade. Some other kit alterations).
The laundry list of changes plus the rebalancing of characters, not to mention passive changes per role — begs the question if this beta was in a “balanced“ state. We can’t forget Blizzard said that many other characters are being dropped into the game on launch, and since there is a chance that were getting another beta before release; its going to be interesting to see who gets dropped in and what changes they’re going to do in the name of balance. Really makes me question how much “development“ they’ve done so far for the PVP; if any in the last year alone.
We got a chance to play the new game mode Push and see if we like it more than 2CP — answer: we do. 2CP by far in solo-queue and even the OWL was not a favorite game mode. It ultimately came down to massive levels of coordination that no one was really ready to create and the consequence of one slight mistake meant a probable loss and MASSIVE amounts of toxicity in competitive queue.
Push feels a lot better of a game mode especially with the 5v5 format change. Push also exists on new maps designed for Push, and these maps function so much more different than the other maps and game modes. With the format change and one less tank, and less shields overall, the maps allow for more flanking and player agency to win their own fights or be rendered obsolete.
Just like pushing a payload, pushing the robot requires people to attend to the robot and hold control until its lost. The back and forth can be pretty intense, and depending on how far you push the bot; another closer spawn point opens up, until the bot gets pushed back beyond that section in its path. Spawn points are permanent when reaching checkpoint in the other game modes, but not in Push. This dynamic is pretty cool and makes getting the bot to the enemy team’s first spawn point viable. To be honest if Push wasn’t better than 2CP, I’m pretty confident everyone would just quit Overwatch, but so far people are keeping their hopes high; even if this beta was lacking content due to their time in development.
Also, the Ping system is a nice addition.
The Development
On that note of development time; a lot of people were curious if they spent any time on development in the past 3ish years. Some character changes, a new character, new maps, new mode, and UI and audio and some minor graphical updates… was this it?
Now granted, Covid-19 shutting down businesses left and right, especially out here in California where Blizzard is headquartered at, wasn’t the best thing for development. However, Blizzard wasn’t making a completely new IP from scratch. Graphical updates, maps, and characters were probably the bulk of the development, and of course not forgetting about the whole point of Overwatch 2 — the PvE.
The jump from 1 to 2 was primarily about adding a whole new PvE experience which would blow Overwatch 1’s seasonal PvE content out of the water. They teased already how these systems would work with almost RPG-like features, and I would assume an incredible amount of content to warrant a possible $40 - $60 price point, accounting for the economic times we live in. Though this cost is ONLY for the PvE side of the game; PvP will be a free upgrade from Overwatch 1 in order to not alienate the entire community between two different titles. One additional feature I would love to see day 1 is no more lootboxes.
On PCGamer theres an article published pretty recently talking about an interview with Jeff Kaplan, assuming before his departure from Blizzard, talking about how lootboxes may or may not be in Overwatch 2. “Were definitely open to change“, could indicate them looking toward other forms of monetization. A Battlepass system would be nice, but Blizzard is always about doing things their way, so hopefully they do a new system with considerably less RNG to gain cosmetics.
One last thing to add was sometime ago the development team put out a video discussing development changes to Overwatch 2. These changes essentially are splitting up the production of the game; focusing more on delivering the PvP first, then giving us the PvE at a later date. So I’m curious if this means we just receive a “free“ upgrade to the Overwatch 2 PvP while receiving the PvE content over time just like Overwatch 1’s seasonal PvE game modes.
Though I suspect these PvE content patches would cost money? Maybe buy a season pass for certain pieces that roll-out over time? Maybe throw down $60 at the PvP launch and receive all PvE content when it releases? Who knows.
So best guess since they have yet to announce a date for release, we could assume perhaps Q1 or early Q2 next year for PvP. Its been a hot minute, and of course Blizzards own internal problems are a hindrance of their own making, not including Covid-19 slowing production. The next thing we can hope for in the near future is another beta with more content to test. Until then, best review I can give the beta is:
It was a nice revisit to the game considering I haven’t played Overwatch since early 2020. The content and changes were nice, but I still require a lot more to want to play the game consistently like I did back in 2016. Hopefully with everything included, the competitive nature of the game can revitalize the Pro scene and streaming/content scene, and give the community something more for the OWL.
I pray the PvE isn’t bad, otherwise the casual community could end up dropping the game entirely out of spite. The speed and fullness of the content needs to be quick and abundant, but I’m afraid at this stage in the wait time could mean if replayability isn’t peaking a certain amount of hours (100+ for casuals) then it would make no difference.
All-in-all, they need to “WOW“ us a bit more in the next beta. If the amount of content is about the same in this one, its just going to get uglier. I’m hopeful though that we can get something akin to an “upgrade“ of Overwatch instead of them calling it a “new game“. At this point it isn’t necessary to refer to it as Overwatch “2”. It to me was always about just giving us a massive content and UI update, I just hate that its taking so long.
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