Overwatch 2 stumbles into a unique conundrum though, because its cosmetic economy is built on a system so different to what we have now. Skins used to be earned randomly, with each loot box offering a small chance of us rolling a rare or legendary item that would absolutely make our day. It was certainly unhealthy and downright exploitative in how it preyed on vulnerable people like me with no concept of how much money or time they were wasting on such pursuits, but now things are so much more definitive.
Blizzard needed to change its release model to make more money and get with the times, and there wasn’t really a way to do that without throwing a number at the end and making it free-to-play across all platforms. I don’t mind this direction at all, and think it will result in a much better game when all is said and done, but something about it does irk me.
Despite my praise for the designs, Overwatch is not a game with in-depth characters - it’s all skin deep. Any attempt to flesh them out usually comes through fine print in the lore, promo reels, or external material like comic books. I understand why fans want these great site designs to be built upon further, and I appreciate that a hero shooter all about utilising powers and fast PvP play is not the ideal genre for deep, interconnected stories. Overwatch has two queer characters, which is more than most triple-A games, but it’s hard to give it too much credit when their queerness has been so completely downplayed. It’s often lauded for its diversity - it even once had a GLAAD nomination - but that fact is its two queer characters are white, cis, and straight passing, while there are more playable animals and playable robots than there are playable Black women. That’s not too much of a stretch though, given that there are zero Black women in Overwatch’s heaving roster right now - Sojourn will join in Overwatch 2, but that feels too late for a game with playable 32 charact
Overwatch 2 is a weird sequel. It’s more of a live-service update with fancier menus and quality of life improvements instead of a fundamental evolution of what came before, except it’s a whole new game - although it’s free and your progress carries over, so it’s not really that much of anything.
It could be argued that Overwatch doesn’t need to waste time focusing on this stuff, pushing an "agenda" that simply takes away focus from actually playing the game. But it should, its queer characters deserve more than just a passing mention to keep us satisfied. Explore these stories, show that Overwatch is worthy of the awards and nominations it has received for doing the bare minimum for representation. Two cisgender white homosexuals feels like a sanitised definition of diversity. Where are the POC, transgender characters, and those who refuse to fit into neat little boxes? The universe is only growing with the coming sequel, and its grasp on representation should do so along with
These days, I’m lucky enough to work in games, and that means even if I don’t get a game code, I know that I’ll be able to write about a game and make money off it. In 2016 when Overwatch released, that wasn’t the case. I’d buy new games, beat them, then flip them at a second hand shop and use that money to buy another game, and so on. That’s a big part of why single player games, with a definitive ending, matter so much to me. The Witcher, The Last of Us, Horizon, Grand Theft Auto 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, and every FIFA from 09 to 19 all entered my life that way. Countless others, too. Despite this, I still have my old Overwatch disc, gathering dust on my shelf as it dwindles in value and my play time trickles up by a few measly minutes every six months or so. There’s just something very compelling about Overwatch’s existence that never quite translates to its gamep
Overwatch 2 is free to play, so in theory it’s not too much of an issue that it’s an entirely new game. Splatoon and Call of Duty both charge full price for their updates on what came before, and Overwatch 2 at least avoids that. But it doesn’t mitigate how dated Overwatch 2’s structure already feels, and how much that contrasts with how the initial game felt at launch. Overwatch is a hero shooter, and part of its popularity has been the affection for its heroes, not to mention how differently each of its roster plays. There are characters with pistols, shotguns, bazookas, ice blasters, revolvers, sniper rifles, mech suits, and bows and arrows, but whatever the weapon is, Blizzard seems dead set on aiming them all directly at its f
Meanwhile, he’ll see Tracer on the other side of the war, since she’s a Redcoat Cavalrywoman with twin Revolutionary-era revolvers in her hip holsters. I understand the logic behind this; lots of the other characters delve into their national cultural heritage too. Widowmaker is a Mousquetaire, Zarya a Polyanitsa warrior, Genji a samurai, and Lucio a Conquistador. But for a long time, the excuse held up in defence of Tracer and Soldier 76’s queerness only featuring off-screen is that Overwatch simply isn’t the type of game that allows for anything more. Well, the Archives skins do. There is so much cultural history in their queerness, in Stonewall and the earliest Pride protests, in the punk movement, in art, and through cultural trailblazers that speak to the heart of who Soldier 76 is far more than just putting him in a different soldier outfit from a few centuries