It made good on a promise to reveal queer characters earlier in the game’s life and the internet exploded at the reveal. The comic that came out around the Christmas holiday gave some glimpses into the characters’ private lives, including a kiss between Tracer and her girlfriend Emily. It’s clear that this vision, taking form as world building, is a way to drive diversity (of a sort) in their heroes, to represent more than just the people making the game. The ideas behind Overwatch’s vision for humanity have been cast as an ideological glow over the franchise-that we should see things for what they can be, not what they are right now. Seeing everyone on social media start crying after watching the Last Bastion short made me believe that even a game with very few traces of story present in the extant gameplay can still move you in some ways. It’s been a slow trickle of information but one that has its hooks embedded deep within my brain.
This is what compels me to be interested in Overwatch beyond just the gameplay, I want to know more about the strange optimism of this ragtag assembly of people who have lived through a global robot apocalypse. Three heroes debuted after the initial 21 ( Ana, Sombra and Orisa), as well as three new maps (Eichenwalde, Ecopoint: Antarctica, and Oasis) and slowly Blizzard is filling in the details of what exactly this future looks like in supplemental materials like animated shorts and comic books. I don’t think Overwatch came into such acclaim by having an interesting and fun set of design choices (though I would argue that it’s definitely what broke the game into the genre), but it is that the game pairs them so well with a light story that hooked many fans that would have not otherwise given it a second look. If anything really stood out to me as the core focus of Overwatch over the past year, it has to be just that: the world that it’s set in. All my friends have heroes they prefer and in concert, that team aspect comes through on both a narrative and literal level. I’m not playing a random soldier with a complicated loadout, I’m choosing a character who has story notes filled in and a visual appearance that’s distinctive and interesting. I suspect that most multi-player games strive for this experience in some way but given how Overwatch presents itself as a self-contained fantasy of individual personalities, it takes on a more personalized touch.
Blizzard made queueing up by myself enjoyable, but goofing off with a group of my friends and winning a match feels so good that it’s what I opt for in the end. This all keyed into something early on that made the experience fun for me: any online game becomes way more fun when you can bring your friends along. Blizzard also eventually expanded its custom game function so that players could thoroughly experiment with settings to delight and befuddle each other. While it was fun sometimes to try and play a regular match against five Symmetras and a Bastion, shunting that kind of game play to their expanded Arcade section (which became the new home for trying out new maps, Brawl modes, 1v1 mode, as well as 3v3 mode and the Custom Game feature) made play cleaner and more organized for the specific kind of experience you were interested in having. They introduced and then reworked their competitive mode early on, based on the seasons model that’s been popular with their other games, as well as re-defining the main game mode (quickplay) as having single hero locks. The game underwent quite a few revisions to gameplay modes as well as major balance changes for most of its playable heroes. Overwatch really didn’t rest on its laurels, regularly trying to improve on that gameplay. It reduced crucial anxiety and made the experience tight and fun for someone like me. It’s one of the reasons I fell so hard into it in the beginning despite being someone who gets hives around competition and first person shooter mechanics. It was a game in a space that was often elitist and toxic, and it consciously used design to combat some of those elements-teamwork is central, and positive reinforcement for good play is key.
The game emerged on a market that was already oversaturated with shooters, but it provided a colorful entry point for a lot of people who were too shy or new to the genre. If anything, it was exciting to be present for the beginning of a franchise-Blizzard’s first original creation in almost two decades and one that came out of the ashes of their failed MMO concept, Titan. I’m a veteran of persistent content, having played World of Warcraft for well over a decade. I’ve been playing Overwatch for over a year. When people talk about their experiences with a title, it usually clocks in at hours, spent over a period of months. A year is a length of time that’s hard to parse for most games.
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