Image used with permission by copyright holderThe Twitterati have spoken, and by a commanding margin you want to watch us play Overwatch, Blizzard’s newly-released hero shooter. Following in the footsteps of Team Fortress 2 and competing more directly with the recent Battleborn and upcoming LawBreakers, Overwatch is a team first-person shooter where you can choose from a wide variety of characters, each featuring their own unique set of weapons, complementary abilities, and special powers. Blizzard’s signature flair for design is here in full force, with a colorful and charming cast of heroes that could be right out of a Pixar movie.
Join Digital Trends’ Will Fulton on Twitch at 1 p.m. EST as he demonstrates his thoroughly unimpressive FPS chops–remember, you asked for this! You can watch below or directly on DT’s Twitch channel, where you can join the chat to help or harangue Will.
Despite its rocky start, I’m still optimistic about Overwatch 2’s future
Overwatch 2’s launch year didn’t exactly go as planned.
In the lead-up to its October 2022 launch, the excitement for the hero shooter sequel was sky-high, largely thanks to a planned Hero mode. As its release date approached, several choices during development would erode that hype. That would include the departure of Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan, a controversial swap to five-player teams, and plans for a revamped battle pass and microtransaction system. Even more complaints arose when new characters were initially locked behind a battle pass and Blizzard ditched its planned PvE campaign -- which was arguably the biggest justification for creating the sequel in the first place..
Why Overwatch 2’s show-stealing new hero took an extra four years to debut
With the switch to 5v5, Tanks became a make-or-break part of any Overwatch 2 team. While Support and Damage players can rely on another player of their class to pick up their slack when they struggle, tanks no longer have that privilege. As a more casual Overwatch 2 player who’s not competitively viable, this has discouraged me from playing as a tank. While I do like the abilities of characters like Junker Queen, I’m hesitant to play as them because I’m worried about being the player that causes my team to lose. Mauga, the latest Overwatch 2 hero, looks to change that, but it took years of ideas and concept reboots on Blizzard’s end.
Unveiled at BlizzCon 2023, Mauga is an aggressive Samoan tank allied with Talon that can tear through enemies with his two chainguns and dash that makes him invincible. That makes him enjoyable for those who like more offensive Heroes, but Support fans will find some stuff to love with abilities that can heal other players or give them infinite ammo. I had the chance to play Mauga at BlizzCon 2023, and for the first time since Overwatch 2 was released, I’m eager to go back and play as a Tank.
Overwatch 2’s story missions are the light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel
Overwatch 2: Invasion finally brings three PvE story missions to the competitive shooter, but it was an arduous process to get here.
When Blizzard Entertainment first announced Overwatch 2 in 2019, the game’s main hook was new cooperative story missions that would finally give players the Overwatch narrative content they yearned for alongside more replayable Hero Missions and a Talent skill tree system. When Overwatch 2 eventually launched into early access in October 2022 after several leadership changes, it was free-to-play and lacked any narrative content. To make matters worse, a May 2022 announcement from Blizzard that it canceled work on the Hero Missions system put the future of PvE story content into question for many Overwatch players.
