Overwatch - The Review
This shooter appeals to a wide audience, but does it have the legs to interest the competitive scene?
If you took the temperature of the current competitive FPS scene, you'd get a reading somewhere between apathetic and lukewarm.
What is there to say? The modern military shooter is a horse that has been flogged well into decomposition. I think that horse died somewhere in 2008. The folks presiding over Call of Duty, whomever that may be at this point, haven't released anything compelling since the first Black Ops. The Battlefield franchise remains oh so Battlefieldy, which isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but even DICE have their missteps. Remember Hardline? Yeah, I don't want to either. Star Wars Battlefront was pretty underwhelming too. Obviously Counter Strike has a huge following, but those games never really did it for me either because they are so vanilla.
Not vanilla.
And that's about it. There are a few other shooters kicking about, but nothing has grabbed my attention in years now. But then Blizzard comes along and says they've been working on a team-based hero-shooter. Cue the heavy comparisons to Team Fortress 2. And my ears perk up because, yeah, I haven't played a good competitive FPS in over half a decade now. I'm starting to feel the itch.
Overwatch is Blizzard’s first new IP in a long, long time. These masters of character work and world building have been working with dusty IPs for as long as I can remember. The Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo universes are featured in essentially all of their work for the last two decades. For example, their most recent title and first foray into the MOBA world, Heroes of the Storm, draws from all three universes. In fact, you’d have to go all the way back to 1997 to find an IP that wasn’t one of Blizzard’s “big three”. So imagine the trepidation long-time Blizzard fans felt when they heard that Overwatch would feature a whole new universe and cast of characters. Also, this game would be exclusively multiplayer focused. Add in the fact that this universe was originally supposed to be part of a larger scale MMO which was ultimately scrapped, and you start to see where these mixed feelings come from. But at the end of the day, this is Blizzard we’re talking about. I think if anyone deserves a benefit of the doubt, it is Blizzard.
Although Overwatch is a multiplayer only title as of now, Blizzard has released various vignettes and exposition dumps on their website detailing the backstory of the heroes of Overwatch. Essentially, Overwatch is a peacekeeping force that exists to protect humanity from evil. Due to stability in the world (perhaps thanks to our friends in Overwatch), the force has disbanded, but a recent spike in nefarious business has thrust the group back into action. And that’s about it. Although I appreciate a nuanced narrative (please see the Dark Souls III lore series I promised but will never get around to), the simplicity of Overwatch’s narrative is very refreshing. It is super accessible and doesn’t require 40+ hours of gameplay to unpack, which is a very smart move by Blizzard.
The most impressive part of Overwatch for me is, as usual, Blizzard’s character work. But more impressively, it is how these characters synergize with how they are played. Take, for example, Reinhardt. Reinhardt is a huge, hulking robodude that wears intimidating-ass plate armor. He wields a giant hammer and a deployable energy shield. Reinhardt’s silhouette on the battlefield is one that should invoke dominance and power, and it certainly does. He trudges across the battlefield, deploying his shield so that smaller, more vulnerable characters can seek refuge behind this huge armored titan. If you find yourself within melee range of Reinhardt, you’re pretty much screwed because with that huge hammer, he can pound smaller heroes into dust.
Reinhardt is a tank. He looks big and tanky. He does tank stuff. Good job, Blizzard.
The rest of the cast is split into different role archetypes, but characters within these archetypes feel very different. The support class is a great example of this. My favorite support character, Zenyatta, feels very much like a WoW priest/warlock hybrid. He is able to cast heals on allies, apply debuffs to enemies, and dish out a decent amount of damage. Another support healer I like to pay, Lucio, plays very differently than Zenyatta despite both being labelled as support characters. Lucio heals by proximity, and is also able to apply a movement speed buff to allies who stick close by. Instead of dealing a respectable amount of damage, Lucio’s offensive game consists of a pushback shot that is effective in keeping opponents off the objective and can even result in a few eliminations if you’re able to knock enemies off the map. I have never played a healer in any game – MOBA, MMO, or otherwise – that felt as fun as the healers of Overwatch. Instead of begrudgingly selecting a healer when no one else will play one, I am finding myself actively looking to play support, and being bummed out when we already have that need covered.
Serving up some healing balls, Zenyatta style.
It may seem like simple praise to design a character that plays up to the way they look, but it’s still intuitive nonetheless. It’s such smart character design to look at a hero and be able to decipher what their role on the battlefield will be just by their appearance. It also works the other way around. If you see a silhouette of a character on the opposing team standing far away, stationary, and with the elevation advantage, you should probably hide behind something because chances are, that’s a sniper and they’ve got you in their sights. If it’s a big, slow moving mammoth like the aforementioned Reinhardt or Roadhog (a fat biker pig with a shotgun), you should probably try and flank them because they’ll have a lot of health but not so much in the way of movement speed.
The ability to change heroes mid-game is huge. The only MOBA I really got into was Smite, and in Smite, you are locked into your choice for the entirety of the match. So if someone on the opposing team picked a god that is a hard-counter to your choice, you get to spend the next 20-30 minutes getting wrecked over and over again. In Overwatch, the player is able to change their hero on the fly. This makes most matches feel very balanced, for the most part. Teams with bad composition at the beginning of the match can still pull it together in the final seconds if they make smart adjustments. There is a very tangible “tug” in every match where it feels like momentum is balancing on a thread and can fall either way with the slightest push. If one team member makes a great play, that may be all the team needs to get over the hump towards victory.
These plays are smartly showcased after every match with Overwatch’s Play of the Game camera. This is somewhat similar to Call of Duty’s final killcam, but it provides more context into how a match was won. You may see a play from the first round of a best of three match where one player single-handedly locked down the objective long enough for the cavalry to arrive. I’d like to see Blizzard work on their algorithm a little more for determining what makes the cut. Currently, there isn’t much love for support players like myself who pull off a succession of clutch heals. I still see way too many clips of Bastion spraying a poor team’s spawn point down and ripping off 4 meaningless kills.
This guy.
Speaking of meaningless kills, kills are meaningless in Overwatch. How ‘bout them apples? Instead of kills, players are awarded with “eliminations” any time they contribute to a kill. Whether assisting on a kill, or full-on nuking someone… these are worth the same at the end of the day. You can’t check leaderboards in the middle of the match to see who is dragging your squad down by going 4-25. Psychologically, this is another wise move by Blizzard. The rage quit factor is huge in competitive FPS’s, mostly because of macho internet bros bragging about their 3.4 k/d that they got by sitting in the back of the map all day. Because kills are mostly taken out of the equation, you can measure your performance by various other metrics. Taking the focus away from glorifying a shiny k/d is most apparent in the post-game summary screen. Four exceptional players are highlighted for their performance during the match. Instead of simply showcasing the 4 players with the highest kill totals, accomplishments such as “most time spent on objective”, “most healing done”, or “most damage blocked” are praised. Match participants are able to award one of these players with a commendation. I’ve made a dumb goal for myself of trying to heal at least 5k damage per match. It’s an easy number to hit if you’re hanging around the objective, so if I’m doing any less than that, I know I’m not helping my team out enough.
Imagine that: An FPS player upset with their performance because they didn’t help their team out enough? There’s still hope, society.
Because this is a Blizzard game, you can bet everything is super polished. The music is great, all of the character dialogue is memorable and unique, and the game looks wonderful. It is very colorful and as I said before, no one is better than Blizzard at designing memorable characters. After playing Fallout 4, Dark Souls III, and The Division for the last 6 months, it’s nice to finally have a game that features more in its color palette than various hues of dirt brown and drab gray. Even the menus look fantastic. Blizzard has done action RPGs, real-time strategy games, and the most iconic MMO of all time. You’d think they’d know a thing or two about designing slick UI’s. Overwatch certainly doesn’t disappoint in that department. UI’s are not really talked about enough when reviewing games. It’s one of those things where if you have a good UI and menu, it goes unnoticed but bad menus cannot be ignored. Overwatch has incredibly sleek looking menus that go a long way in contributing to Overwatch’s overall polish.
The environments have as much personality as the characters themselves.
Despite all of the positive gushing I’ve done here, I do have some concerns about the longevity of Overwatch.
As of this writing, there are only 4 game types available. Quick Match drops you into a lobby which rotates through all the game variants and maps available. It is what I spent 95% of my time in. There is also a co-op vs AI mode which is useful if you are looking to learn a new hero without the pressure of getting dominated by real live humans, a custom game lobby, and an Arcade Brawl mode. This playlist is updated weekly and will allow for extremely varied game types. Variables like starting health, damage done, match length, and ultimate ability recharge time are just a few things that can be tweaked to offer up fresh game types. Blizzard has announced that a ranked competitive playlist will be available in an update scheduled for next month, which is good to hear. Because the current playlists are unranked and there is no downside to losing a match, every once in a while you’ll get thrown into a game where everyone is straight up ignoring the objective and just wailing on each other. It gets frustrating to lose because everyone wants to get “hella kills, yo” and ignore the objective completely.
We won’t fully know this until competitive play kicks off, but I’m afraid the relative simplicity of these heroes puts a lower skill ceiling on high-level play. I’ve put in around 20 hours in Overwatch so far and I have yet to come across a mind-blowing play that I could consider truly next-level. As it stands, most heroes have an ability that is easily countered by someone else on the roster. If Bastion is mowing your squad down in turret mode, it’s easy to switch to Hanzo or Widowmaker and snipe him from a safe distance. If that same Hanzo or Widowmaker is laying waste to your team, Tracer or Reaper’s movement abilities make it easy to flank pesky snipers. And so on. The ability to change heroes mid-match feeds into this idea of hard-countering on the fly.
One huge draw of the Battlefield and the Call of Duty games for me is their progression. Having some kind of reward to work towards – whether it’s a powerful weapon, a new killstreak or ability, even unlocking a dorky emote – increases the game’s replayability substantially. Unfortunately, I don’t feel the same progression tug from Overwatch. All of the heroes are available from the start, which in my opinion is a great move, but it kind of neuters the sense of progression for these games. You gain experience and rank up by completing matches, but your rewarded with a loot box every level you gain. These loot boxes are also available for purchase… with real world currency. Yeah, pretty gross, but as far as I can tell, these loot boxes contain purely cosmetic items. And to be fair, most of the rarer hero skins are pretty great. But I want to be rewarded with tangible gameplay benefits. In a title where gameplay balance is at the utmost importance, I’m not sure how you do that.
Hey, making games is hard. I’ll concede that point.
A factor that limits Overwatch’s viability at the competitive level is server tick rate. I’m in no way an expert on these things, so I will instead link a great Kotaku article on the matter. Essentially, Overwatch servers currently have a tick rate of 20hz. That means the servers update their data 20 times per second. The norm for FPS games seems to be around 30-60hz depending on who you ask, while some tournament tier servers have tick rates in the 120hz range. Server tick rate has a direct impact on what you see on your screen versus what your opponent sees on theirs. This includes hit detection, rubber banding, etc. I’ve definitely noticed several times where I thought I got behind cover in the nick of time to avoid getting sniped, but the kill cam will show that I was indeed out in the open. Or a shot will land a couple feet off my character model but I’ll still go down. This discrepancy leads to questionable kill cams and inevitable cheat accusations, which is not a path you want to go down when building a solid foundation for a competitive FPS. Blizzard may be keeping tick rates low at the moment to avoid their servers from becoming dumpster fires during these initial weeks post-launch, so the verdict is still out on whether tick rate is going to be an issue going forward. Battlefield 4 had the same issues with tick rate at launch. If you can remember, that game was an absolute shit show for its first couple months. Tick rate was gradually improved and eventually they were able to offer 120hz and even 144hz servers. Overwatch’s custom lobbies have a 60hz option available, so that gives me hope that this option will make it to the competitive side.
Overall, I feel that Overwatch shines as a fresh take on a genre that has gotten stale in the last several years. Even though I did have a few minor concerns, Blizzard’s extensive track record says they will iron those out. They have been at the forefront of online multiplayer for two decades now, so it’s safe to say that Overwatch is in good hands. This could have easily been another bloated shooter, and frankly, it was headed in that direction as a tie-in to Blizzard’s failed Titan MMO. Blizzard’s commitment to creating a shooter that is simply fun to play and a pleasure to look at has made Overwatch one of the top shooters that I have played in the last ten years. With a few minor tweaks and Blizzard’s tradition of outstanding post-launch support of their titles will hopefully keep Overwatch fresh for years to come.
Developer: Blizzard
Platform: PC (reviewed), PS4, Xbox One
Price: $39.99 (PC), $59.99 (Consoles)
FINAL VERDICT - 4.5/5
