How I Fell out of Love with Overwatch

This month, The Cameron Journal is proud to be sponsored by The Blinkist. We all need time to read but finding that time is hard. Blinkist makes it far easier by summarizing popular books and thought leaders into small chunks that you can listen to into the gym or in the car. Sign up with the Blinkist to start the learning today.

After 5 years and two platforms I’ve basically walked away from playing Overwatch. I didn’t get to grow up with gaming systems and Overwatch was the game I bought with my very first PS4. I played for two years on PS4 and then switched and re-learned the game on PC to play with my friends. I started playing two weeks after launch and I often would play several rounds a night after work. Overwatch was the first game I ever played competitively and the first game I ever felt like I was any good at playing.

Quick play is too structured

In recent years, Quick Play has gotten really structured. To force teams to be more balanced, you now have to pick between tank, healer, and damage. This aims to force people to play slots they might not normally play and make teams more balanced. There are incentives to play tank and healer because those are consistently unpopular. However, the point of Quick Play is to jump in and play, not necessarily to win. In essence, Quick Play has become practice for competitive and that’s not as fun as random people coming together to play.

Total mayhem is the real overwatch

Ever since they launched the arcade with different game play modes, I’ve been impressed with how flexible the game platform can be. That being said, the Total Mayhem arcade game is, in my opinion, the real Overwatch. Every character’s stats are doubled and the cooldown times are cut in half. So it makes the game faster and more exciting. I will confess, Total Mayhem is one of the few things I will still play in Overwatch because it is genuinely enjoyable and it allows teams to really flex their muscles. Because of the stats change, strategy and approach is far more important than character choices. Map knowledge and placement becomes far more important and that makes for a much better game. I think its better balanced as well which leads me to my next issue.

Game balance issues

Overwatch, since its inception has suffered from balance issues. Characters have been heavily modified or had powers removed to try and change the nature of the game. This is especially true with Roadhog, Bastion, and Symmetra. Every time the players figure out how to dominate with a character, they get nerfed soon after. I get that this is to keep the game playable and fun but all the changes have ended up with a game that’s less balanced than before. There are some heroes that you will rarely see played at all, especially in competitive because their abilities can be too easily overwhelmed by other common characters.

The new heroes suck

One of the things I’ve noticed, especially in my recent gaming sessions is how few of the new heroes are getting played. Echo gets some play but Baptiste is rare to see on a map. Everyone is still often playing the original heroes. You will see A Hammond from time to time but people tend to stick with the originals. I think this is because the newer heroes just aren’t that good. They don’t really add a different dynamic to the game play. They don’t add to the strategy or give something essentially that a team just can’t live without.

Stagnation

I also feel like the game is a bit stagnant. They didn’t release new maps fast enough, the holiday events haven’t changed in years, and so there’s just not much pulling me back into playing the game. Faced with a plethora of games to play and limited time as an adult/professional type guy, Overwatch is nice because you can get in a round or two before bed or in between tasks like laundry but there’s not much really pulling me into playing the game. As much as I’m not a huge fan of Fortnite, they do keep things changing up and that makes it easier to decided to go jump on the Battle Bus just to see what they have done differently.

Final Thoughts

I still play a little Total Mayhem from time to time but after 6 years of Overwatch, I’ve really just fallen out of love with the game. It’s not the same excitement that I used to experience. Perhaps it is growing older and shifting priorities but I also feel like Overwatch needs a total refresh. This is coming with Overwatch 2 but rather than introducing new maps, new game modes, and dynamic characters we’re going in a completely different direction. Will I buy and play Overwatch 2? I’ll have to see some gameplay first before I decided to jump on the bandwagon.