REVIEW – I must admit (entirely truthfully I have to admit this), I was never a huge Blizzard fan. I see why many millions of people love their game, and can also see how WoW became so popular. However the concept of having only three bands and we touch them only 5-10 years, and even then „the gameplay does not change only the graphics” mentality is a bit weak. Although I did enjoy the work of the designers and artists in the games. They have all the time in the world to do their best in the industry.

So they developed an MMO for at least a decade (TITAN) which we never saw anything, but Blizzard decided to use the elements learned while developing the game to transform it. Thus, they announced Overwatch which surprised me and a lot of other gamers as for it being an FPS… an FPS from Blizzard. Well, let us see what we have.

Once upon a time … nothing

The story of Overwatch is a bit non-existent. There is a story, well mostly lore, and background information for the characters, but it can be entirely ignored. Sadly because this is an online shooter, Blizzard decided to ignore what they are best at The story and single player. I always loved FPS games, but when I see the words Online Only the nerve hits me a bit.

Sometimes the online only products become nothing more than background noise chat, or little kids trying to swear and call people noobs. Oh, and I have not even mentioned how sometimes teammates suck. It also hurts that Blizzard is asking the same price as a Triple AAA game with epic set pieces and story lines.

It’s time to choose Mr. Freeman…

Starting a quick match we find ourselves in a menu where we have to select a character from the roster. There are twenty-one characters, all of them have certain roles. In total four characters are in the game: Defense, Offense, Tank, and Support. Although in a lot of games you can select characters the difference here is that all of them have unique weapons, abilities, and move sets.

This requires a new playstyle every time you pick a new character. So if we kill a lot with a particular character, another player can come in and kill us with a character that has the advantage. So the characters were not disappointing as sometimes I could steamroll everyone, and at times, I was destroyed easily.

The player will need a chance to figure out which playstyle and character suit them the most, and this provides tremendous depth to the game.

Under the lonesome sun

Unfortunately, the game’s biggest problem is its game modes or lack of. There are only three game modes, two of which are almost the same (conquer territory), and in the third one, we have to escort a car to the location.

A leveling up system is in the game (Which has no upper limit), but upon leveling up, we get gifts. Although these do not provide us with any advantage. They are called as loot boxes, and they give us four random items. These can be skins, voices for characters, etc. There are around 50-52 items to pick up per character, so it will take some time to get all of them… unless you want to use real money to get loot boxes.

Besides the microtransactions, I like this system… .finally a game where the perk skills do not matter. The game is not greedy and rewards us if we play together as an actual team. I noticed it here that the members try to fight for the common objective instead of wandering away (like in 90% of FPS games).

Where’s the creative team?

The graphics of Overwatch are okay. It is not bad, but I could not find the high quality from Blizzard that I am used to from previous games. Neither the engine nor the levels are spectacular. The twelve maps are not a few; the locations are fun, but the execution is lacking, and it does not feel like Blizzard made it.

If I were to sum up Overwatch, I would be in trouble. I can see that the game is trying to be an Esport leader. It is casual friendly, and anyone can pick it up play it, but also Overwatch requires to be mastered. The game probably cost the less for the company (due to all the remaining Titan elements), but the content for the game is severely lacking.

There is no singleplayer and only three game modes? Seriously? I do not get Blizzard how they could release such a game. We will have the usual updates for free with free maps and new modes (co-op is on the way), but the release features are insultingly little. Even if there are twenty-one characters in the game.

All in all, I got a game that provides us with nothing new or substantial, a barebone 6vs6 FPS, that reminds me of an old game I played, but here I had to pay 60 dollars. I feel like this game is simply free to play the game, but even that is insulting as F2P games at times have more content. This game to me is not revolutionary, nor it did bring anything new to the table. I think I’ll go back to Diablo 3, at least there is a soul in that game.

-Sonny Cavalera-

Publisher: Activision-Blizzard

Developer: Blizzard

Genre: Online FPS

Release date: May 24, 2016