Recent reviews by Endhog

Lot of fun, looks great, and very polished

How did they make the release this much worse than the beta?

Blizzard stopped updating Overwatch for 3 years. They promised a new game, with new and improved PvP and an entirely new PvE gamemode. The content shown from this new game looked great, and the community was naturally excited for the PvE system; we didn't feel the need to complain about the lack of updates. It'll be worth it when the new game releases, after all.

Blizzard, instead, released what can only be described as a complete and utter disappointment.

Instead of a game, after the 3 year wait, they released a medium to large sized update. They shuffled the PvP around a bit, added a few heroes and maps and removed some features, in an attempt to make the game appeal to a more casual audience. This is roughly what we might have expected from a year or two of updates at the original rate, but the lack of new PvP content must be because of the heavily advertised, constantly hyped up PvE gamemode that's coming soon, right? Well, the poor indie company Blizzard "can't deliver" on the promise they made time and time again, and I'm inclined to believe they never intended to. They just needed an excuse to release a free-to-play cash grab to get as much money as they could from the old playerbase while introducing new players to squeeze the wallets of.

They tried to switch the game from the less profitable single purchase model to a free-to-play model, filled to the brim with microtransactions. Blizzard added more filler content in the form of microtransactions than they did tangible gameplay additions for the game. Every skin and cosmetic in the game, which used to be free, now costs an obscene amount of money, and a horrendous iteration of the battle pass model was introduced. You can't grind to get the battle pass again next season after buying it once, and the quality of cosmetics in these battle passes got worse with each one. The worst part of this new microtransaction system, however, is that they have put new heroes behind a paywall, only avoidable by grinding for tens of hours. A competitive game like Overwatch has no place for a pay-to-play system for new characters.

In an attempt to create a game focused more towards casual players, Blizzard managed to ruin the competitive matchmaking system, and attempted to hide their mistakes by not showing player ranks in matches and hiding your SR from you - and don't think this setback means they improved the casual side of the game. Maps and gamemodes were removed, and the custom game system was made much worse. Small luxuries such as cards at the end of games and the fire bar were removed, along with progression indicators such as level, level borders and some statistics from the original game. And of course, we can't forget the complete lack of a new PvE mode.

Recently, Blizzard added a levelling system and a PAID PvE DLC, along with some very minor improvements such as bringing back fire, and improving the matchmaking a little. This is far too little, far too late. I have never seen a game fall from grace so completely, and I never imagined it would be a game I loved as much as Overwatch. This company has done everything short of spitting in each Overwatch 1 player's face to make some money, and they have, of course, deleted the old game entirely so nobody can experience what we once had. My only compliment to Blizzard is that it was likely a very monetarily successful move, which unfortunately may imply that this situation could repeat itsself with other titles. It seems to be an effective business move to transform single purchase games with minimal in-game transactions which have a more or less static playerbase into free-to-play money farms, but I really do hope this isn't the case.

All in all, I'm beyond disappointed. I've been hoping that Overwatch 2 would come closer to what Overwatch was. It hasn't. It truly deserves the masses of negative feedback, and as much as I still hope it improves, I no longer have any faith in Blizzard whatsoever.

From a person who normally doesn't care much for story / exploration games, this might be my favourite game of all time.

good

baloon

monk

it good

it good

it good

If you haven't played Just Cause 3, buy that instead