After 27,000+ Steam reviews, Overwatch 2 is graded as 'Overwhelmingly Negative'

Yes. OW1 cost money, but you got all the content. The only paid service was cosmetic outfits for the different characters. You could buy loot boxes for cosmetics. But you had all of the characters, maps, game modes, etc available to begin with. You got the whole game, then could grind for cosmetics.

OW2 takes that and flips it on its head. The game is free, but each character costs money. The problem is that they shut down OW1, so now the players who owned 1 are having to grind for everything. They’ve also had some weird server bugs, with players getting indefinitely locked out of characters they already own.

Yep. The gameplay itself has no p2w or grinding in general, but now you have to grind to unlock characters. In OW1 you also used to get showered with cool cosmetics just for playing, in OW2 they turned it into a paid battle pass and a rotating cash shop where a single skin costs like $20 and F2P users get basically nothing. The thing is set up in a way to scam whales by selling them things that used to be free for hundreds of dollars.

I would still play if it were just cosmetics but now every time a hero releases you have to grind to unlock them.

Not at all. Theres no grinding in overwatch (1 or 2), at least in the traditional sense like you’d experience in an rpg. You just queue up into a multiplayer lobby and lock a character.

There are a ton of valid points to be critical about with OW2 and it’s new business model. One aspect that could be considered grindy is that new heroes are locked behind battle pass progression unless you buy the premium battle pass (in which case you unlock them early). I disagree with this practice, as it is the only aspect of PvP gameplay that is locked behind a paywall to get it sooner. Everyone should just automatically get new heroes imo.

In terms of the core gameplay, OW2 pvp is vastly improved when compared to OW1; they went from 6v6 to 5v5, eliminating one tank per team composition, so now it’s 1 tank, 2 support, 2 dps. This allows for much better feeling, fast paced, dynamic gameplay when compared to the late days of 6v6 - which was basically a shield shooting simulator with way too much CC. The game actually feels great to play again.

There’s for sure a ton of valid criticisms to levy against the game, but 99% of the hate circlejerk comes from people who haven’t played since 2017 if ever.

OW2 is great. F2P, no loot boxes. I will continue to buy the Battle Pass as long as I play the game. I started playing OW in 2017.

I really don't need another subscription in my life

OW2 is free, they're probably referring to buying OW1 only for them to shut it down and rerelease the same exact game but with battlepass characters.

OW2 is free to play, people brought Overwatch 1 but it was completely patched over with OW2 and it's new monitisation.

He probably bought Overwatch 1, which was turned into F2P overwatch 2.

Actually that's the wrong use of that word in this context. It's actually a "queer questioning point of sale system" he's talking about.

They've been awful since Activision got involved. I knew that was the end the day the news broke, people told me I was wrong. I wish.

Also they sexually harassed an employee to suicide. That tells you all you need to know.

Blizzard has been on a downward trend for a lot longer than 3 years.

Whew. It's surprising how much of this I managed to miss

They were always awful. See: StarCraft Ghost

I'll join you in downvote land. I wholly agree.

Playing tank the last 2 years of OW1 was fucking miserable. I exclusively played tank since season 3 but it made me quit. I've put OW2 down, too, but yeah...gameplay wise it got fun again (once they nerfed sojourn).

Whole lot of rose-tinted glasses about balance in OW1. Who the fuck was having fun in the Hog meta besides Hog players? And HOW LONG did that last? Part of that is because they diverted devs to OW2 but every balance change they made to make tanking more fun was a failure outside of giving Rein his passive.

OW2 is slightly worse than year one OW1 but so much better than the bullshit in late OW1. Am I gonna play it again? Hell no. But do I think people are giving honest reviews about the actual gameplay? Also no.

I'm morally opposed to their mtx model but it didn't affect me as I never cared about skins. The thing that really made me quit was that f2p brought in a ton of young people and it became obvious that I was no longer the target demographic.

Hard disagree. Late stage OW (post 2020) was pretty balanced after they nerfed double shield. Now the game is too chaotic and more dependent on DPS than it ever has been. Also they seemed to have doubled down on burst damage and one-shot heroes, I want to shoot whoever thought Soujourn was a fun addition.

Stop with the bad takes. If they actually worked on anything during the OW1 content drought that didn't just make em a quick buck, we might have gotten a better experience. Someone higher up saw the dwindling player base and went with the cheapest and laziest way to squeeze a couple extra bucks from what's left.

There was so much that could have been done to bring people back, but each time they've either done the literal least, lied, or axed it.

They went 5v5 cause it was the choice that had the least work required to get people to tank, but now if your tank is bad you're pretty much going to lose. They could have kept 6v6 and reworked all the tanks kits.

Blizzard has made every choice so far that says Overwatch is going to be sunset. It's sad to see something as great as OW1 turn into what it is now. Especially when there's a lot that can be done to fix it the right way.

Makes me wonder how the current dev team feels about everything that's happened and how they really feel about the decisions being made currently. Cause Invasion is pretty mediocre so far.

Early stage OW1 beats them all though.

Reduced CC and barriers were good but 5v5 makes the game too swingy and puts too much pressure on the tanks.

Removing a tank completely ruined the balance of the game. There's no reduced CC, infact they added more. Shields was the only main problem, but they could have tried splitting tanks into main/off tank roles to stop double shields, but the whole freedom is what was great about the game, the game started going downhill when they added Sombra, then fell off a cliff with Orisa. They were adding new heroes for the sake of it and not because the game needed it and that is what fucked it.

The design philosophy now is to try and make every character feel strong to play no matter how horrible they are to play against, so people will buy skins for them (or buy the new heroes).

I really hope MS doesn’t take a laissez faire attitude with Act-Blizz and actually take a real hands on approach. I know they’re not the best at handling things but there has to be some type of change for their studio.

You liked getting free cool stuff, not the loot boxes. They can still give away cool stuff for free even without loot boxes but they chose to stop doing so and it sucks.

I think the Battle Pass is fair, it's $10 every 2 months. It helps keep the game running. Overwatch 1 was going to die if they kept going with the old business model.