When Overwatch initially launched, for a brand-new IP, the games experienced an almost viral like success. The team based tactical shooter genre has been extremely popular throughout gaming history, but no game had ever been quite like overwatch when it came out. By focusing the gameplay less around positioning and aiming skill the introduction of Overwatch heroes each with special abilities and powers unique to each character. What this hero system offered was essentially infinite replay-ability by offering an infinite combination of team compositions, the ability to master each individual characters move set, and allowed player to constantly experience something new each game so the games never began to feel stale. Each character offered a unique play style that could appeal to multiple different type of gamers you could run Mercy to support and heal your teammates or run McCree and go for high damage and multiple kills. This was one of Overwatch’s greatest strengths, its vast accessibility and universal playability that made the initial launch and first year so successful. One other part of what made Overwatch initially successful was the lore and story intertwined with the game. The game was only ever a multiplayer game and with no single player story to introduce characters blizzard came up with an interesting idea to get lore across to the players. By releasing a series of shorts online bit and pieces of lore was made available to players who went out and looked for it. This meant that the players that didn’t care did not have lore shoved down their throat and the players that wanted something extra to connect with the heroes that they have been playing got that. This noninvasive way of introducing character backstory offered up a lot of connect-ability with the heroes that previously had been lacking because this was a brand-new IP. For the casual gamer Overwatch offered up a fun experience but where the game really began to shine was in the esports scene. Esports organizations saw the potential in Overwatch and quickly began forming teams of pro players that offered up high skill gameplay that people could watch in tournaments. The hype for the Esports scene got so high that an Overwatch League was formed featuring teams from around the world. With potential million dollar buy in for esports companies it looked like the biggest esports event/league in history. But right as all of this was happening the main problems of Overwatch began to boil to the surface. It’s clear to most gamers that the fall of Overwatch can clearly be attributed to the company that made it Blizzard. Blizzard is one of the most successful game developers in history with worldwide success stories like World of Warcraft and StarCraft. Throughout the history of the company Blizzard have been some of the best at long running games with constant updates including new content that kept gamers consistently coming back to the game. However, the prime of Blizzard as a game developer has long since passed and the current state of Blizzard as a company is in disarray. In a 2021 California lawsuit one ex female employee at Blizzard has sued the company for her constant sexual harassment faced at the company. She stated that blizzard had a “frat boy” like culture that encouraged inappropriate workplace behavior. The worst of all the claims leveled against the company stated that a female employee committed suicide due to the intense sexual harassment she faced at the company with nude photos of herself being shard among male employees without her consent. All of this adds up to portray that the company at the head of everything that went on during Overwatch was a complete mess. This might be the begging of at least a slight explanation of the state that overwatch is in today. For many people the lack of balance in the game has what led them to drop it and give up on the game. Some heroes are as overpowered as the first day the game came out and some are so bad that there literally are almost unplayable if you want to give you team a chance to win. Introducing a vast roster of characters each with individual powers and ultimates sounds like fun but if the game balance is not there playing the game becomes tedious. A game with a lack of balance leads to the creation of certain “metas” within the game that are the most optimal way to play. Once the optimal team comp has been found out there is no reason for players to run anything besides what’s most optimal because without game balance nothing can beat it. And we have not even begun to speak on the overall toxicity present throughout the Overwatch community. Overwatch has become one of the most infamous games that represent a toxic online community, and it has pushed many players away from the competitive scene because no one’s wants to be verbally abused while playing an unbalanced game that has been neglected by a team that does not care about it. This is essentially what I believe to be the main reason why the main player base that Overwatch originally had to give up on the game. Consumers, gamers especially, can tell when little no effort or care is being put into a product. Gamers have given up on the company Blizzard and therefore have given up on the game. But all this negativity aside this does not mean that Overwatch 2 has a foot in the grave in launch. But there is a significant uphill battle the game is going to have to face in order to draw players back in. But I, like many gamers, still remember the early days of Overwatch and how much fun and potential the game really had. So, if Blizzard can capture the magic that was present during the games launch and really focus on balancing the game so that it is a fair experience, I believe the game could make a comeback. Whether it reaches the heights at its peaks is a different question, but the comeback is possible.
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