Overwatch 2 is right here! Type of! The beta for the sport’s multiplayer portion dropped this week, letting people check out the dramatic modifications Blizzard has made to the aggressive facet of the hero shootin’ sequel.
However regardless of a 5v5 format change, a controversial new scoreboard and dramatic hero reworks, Overwatch 2 remains to be very a lot Overwatch, with each video games set to share the identical multiplayer. The actual Overwatch 2, one would possibly argue, is ready to return with the sport’s full PVE marketing campaign, that includes story-driven co-op missions that pit our heroes in opposition to the Omnic hordes.
That facet of the sport remains to be its largest unknown. And, sadly, Overwatch does not have an awesome observe report in telling robust, ongoing tales.
What it does have is a giant, memorable forged. In spite of everything, Overwatch is the ur-hero shooter. Hardly the primary recreation to stuff itself with a forged of quirky, distinct characters (what’s up, TF2 and each single MOBA), but it surely positively marks a pivot from what shooters had been to what they grew to become. In a post-Overwatch panorama, even video games like Battlefield and Name of Responsibility are all-but-required to have distinctive characters with their very own names, kits and backstories.
“The presentation was impeccable, and a variety of care went into defining characters.”
It is easy to see why. On the time, the Overwatch forged hit fandom onerous, with Pixar-quality quick movies introducing us to a various roster of heroes and villains. The presentation was impeccable, and a variety of care went into defining characters via persona, silhouetting and thematically-defined playstyles.
The fandom round these characters was ravenous. Folks latched on onerous to their faves, and there was pleasure over seeing the place Blizzard would take this forged of esports mech pilots, time-travelling sprinters, mad Irish scientists and hyper-intelligent gorillas subsequent.
The issue was, Blizzard did not actually take them anyplace.
Current tense
See, Overwatch has tales. However from character trailers to comics and in-game “Archive” PVE missions, they’re virtually uniformly backstories, developments taking place safely previously the place they cannot have an effect on the present second. The sport’s very first 2014 reveal trailer remained the latest occasion within the recreation’s canon till Overwatch 2’s 2019 Zero Hour announcement.
In 2016, this was enjoyable, and advantageous. We acquired little dialogue chirps between mates or rivals in warm-up rooms, and that little little bit of context was gasoline for a ravenous viewers of fan artists and fanfic writers. However relationships by no means developed or modified. Characters by no means grew, and the state of the world-at-large was left a static unknown (one thing not helped by the truth that Overwatch matches don’t have any bearing on the setting in any respect).
In consequence, Overwatch has solely felt extra stagnant because the years go on. New characters could come every now and then, however the world stays a lot the identical because it was six years in the past.
What Overwatch lacks is a story current, and it is one thing I take into consideration usually in relation to video games like Apex Legends. Launched in 2019, Apex was a intentionally post-Overwatch tackle Titanfall—an try to inject vibrant characters into that collection’ gray army sci-fi universe. At launch, it solely actually half-worked—the unique forged usually feeling too restricted by the Blomkamp-esque world of earlier video games to return into their very own—however not like Overwatch, Apex’s world is not static.
Every season pushes the story forwards in a roundabout way, whether or not it is a character-defining second or politicians warping cities throughout area. Private tales get to maneuver forwards, relationships get room to develop, and new arrivals can dramatically recontextualise present forged members—whether or not it is Valk throwing a wrench into Bangalore and Loba’s budding relationship, or Ash bringing out a venomous side to chirpy space-mom Horizon.
Even character-defining motivations are sometimes given closure or difficult in new instructions. After two years trying to find his creators, Pathfinder discovered them final yr, and Bangalore’s once-dead brother Jackson is arriving as new hero Newcastle subsequent season. A willingness to alter the established order and complicate characters does quite a bit to make them really feel like advanced individuals, and never simply videogame archetypes.
“for those who’re a fan of a selected Overwatch hero, what you see is just about what you get.”
I usually half-joke that Apex is my favorite cleaning soap opera, letting me comply with my favorite characters in plots that develop from season to season. In distinction, for those who’re a fan of a selected Overwatch hero, what you see is just about what you get—with possibly a crumb of backstory to combine issues up every now and then.
Apex’s current tense additionally quietly provides its illustration extra worth. We’re not simply instructed characters like Loba or Valkyrie are queer—we see their queerness manifest in-game and in cinematics, and their relationships to different forged members evolve in messy methods. Overwatch, in the meantime, tells us Tracer and Soldier 76 are homosexual in easily-missable comics, in relationships with characters who by no means get actual screentime.
Future good
The factor is, Overwatch 2 is the right alternative for Blizzard to show issues round. I’ve lengthy maintained {that a} 6v6 (now 5v5) crew shooter was a clumsy match for the world Blizzard was attempting to construct—however with co-op missions that may presumably solely develop in quantity over the sport’s lifespan, Overwatch 2 has a lot potential to reignite its lapsed fanbase.
Positive, mission set-ups will give us express tales about the place the warfare in opposition to the omnics is at. However I need to see Blizzard use this framework to escalate tensions and relationships inside the recreation’s roster. Discover what it actually means for Cole Cassidy and Ashe to be working collectively in spite of everything this time, or dive into the knight/squire dynamic between Reinhardt and Brigitte. And, extra importantly, to let these dynamics change because the story goes on—to let romances blossom, rivalries kind, and see outdated enemies grow to be reluctant mates.
Overwatch has constructed a dense world for itself within the final six years. However stay service tales have come a great distance in that point, with even Fortnite managing to hook individuals into its ongoing Funko Pop narrative. It is time for Blizzard to lastly do one thing with its sci-fi superhero universe—all it must do is take some pointers from the video games that got here in Overwatch’s wake.
