Dust off your weapons Heroes, why Overwatch is back! Had he ever gone away? In reality, the Overwatch League of Heroes hasn’t fared too well lately. After a shocking start that made a FPS (first person shooter) competitive even before its official launch, interest in Overwatch waned within a few years for a variety of reasons. But now, Blizzard Activision is ready to give a new injection of news to the title with Overwatch 2 and this is its review.
Our Overwatch 2 review, the premises
Since its announcement, Overwatch 2 has jumped the spirits of those gamers who have loved / love Overwatch tremendously but who, for one reason or another, have moved away from the title. In fact, as anticipated, Overwatch was not at the top of its game lately. The reasons are many but in general, at some point, the game passed into the second (perhaps third) level of Blizzard’s interests. Accomplice a tumultuous period, with the problems of the management and then the acquisition of part of MicrosoftBlizzard has stopped providing interesting and challenging content to the game, elements of extreme importance for competitive online multiplayer.
With the announcement of Overwatch 2 we knew that the life of the first chapter would last shortly thereafter and today the servers have united and it is now possible to play exclusively the second chapter. But not afraid because the news are many, not all revolutionary, but certainly stimulating.
Let’s find them all!
What’s new compared to Overwatch
- Overwatch 2 is free! The first and undoubtedly the most important novelty is the free-to-play formula of Overwatch 2. Whatever your platform of use, the game is available for free for all players who can play freely without paying a cent.
- The Battle Pass is coming: Overwatch 2 updates, in line with most of the online competitors out there and abandons the much-discussed formula of the reward-chests of the first chapter. A Battle Pass is now available which is renewed periodically and which provides free rewards or, if we want to buy it, extra rewards such as character skins, jokes to use, emotes and so on
- Roles revisited: In Overwatch 2 there are only three combat roles, attacker, defender and support and the number of characters per team has been reduced to 5 instead of 6
- New characters: Upon launch, the character roaster is enriched with three new additions, one for each role. Sojourn, The queen of the Junker e It’s thererespectively a DPS, a tank and a support
- Reworked characters: Added to the new characters are some important reinterpretations of the Heroes we have come to love over the years. The most important reworks were done on Doomfist (now it’s a tank), Bastion e Idol. All the other champions have undergone some balances but basically they remain the same as in the previous chapter.
- New rotating arcade modes and maps
Old and new heroes
Let’s discover the new faces of Overwatch and the most important changes to the historical characters.
Junker Queen
The queen of the Junker is a tank armed with a sawn-off shotgun and a melee weapon that can fire at great distances. its main ability allows it to cause damage over time while the passive ability heals it based on the damage it can cause. Thanks to a commanded yell, he is able to energize allies by allowing them to move faster and briefly increase their maximum health. Her ultimate “Rampage” allows her to dash forward at great speed, cause area damage over time and prevent enemies from healing themselves.
Sojourn
Sojourn it is armed instead with a very powerful railgun that charges with each hit, at maximum charge it can release a powerful beam as well as bullets that slow down the opponent. If in trouble, Sojourn can also slide on the floor to quickly extricate himself from difficult situations or jump into the center of the action in a flash. Her ultimate gives her weapon an infinite charge of energy for a full 9 seconds and makes her piercing blows. A perfect DPS!
It’s there
It’s there it is instead a support capable of attacking with powerful kunai and climbing walls with great agility. His healing abilities are expressed by magical talismans that move in the direction of allies to heal them. Her first active power allows her to instantly teleport alongside an ally, even through walls as her last one unleashes the fury of her fox which leaves a magical trail as she passes. Allies who walk that trail will be blessed with movement, attack, and reload speed.
Doomfist
As anticipated, Doomfist he is now a full tank as his health and defense increase while his attack power decreases. One of Doomfist’s new powers is Bulwark, a defensive stance that allows him to almost completely absorb frontal damage. Also Seismic Momentum has been revised and now allows you to jump at the framed point. His ultimate, Devastating Impact, now deals significantly less damage and does not stun those he hits but activates much faster and slows down targets hit
Bastion
The main novelty of Bastion it concerns the change of the Sentinel configuration now replaced with an assault weapon. Instead of becoming a motionless turret, Bastion becomes a tank that will move much slower on the map. Bastion can now switch between Assault and Recon configuration. While in Recon, his weapon damage is increased from 20 to 25, but ammo is reduced from 35 to 25 rounds. Additionally, Bastion loses the ability to heal itself.
Idol
Idol gives up his role as Tank to become a very powerful DPS. His weapon now has larger bullets and it is easier to hit the target, plus the ammo has been eliminated and now the weapon can shoot up to overheating, which makes it unusable for three seconds. Orisa’s Energy Javelin is now a high-precision projectile capable of stunning and damaging the target that is ricocheted off a wall. The new skill Rotating Javelin allows her to destroy incoming bullets as well as increase movement speed and hit anyone in front of her.
Its ultimate Earthly Impetusallows her to fortify herself and pull allies towards her as she charges a devastating AoE attack.
Overwatch 1.5? Yes, but that’s okay
At this point, you may have noticed that we haven’t said anything about Gameplay changes yet because, well, there haven’t been any. Overwatch remains what it used to be with the same task: to prevail over the opposing team. The news that we have just seen enrich and balance the game but do not change its nature, fortunately. The problems of the first chapter of Overwatch in fact were not to be linked to the game itself as much as to the lack of news and the lack of attention given by the developers.
Overwatch 2 could change everything not because we are facing a new game, we do not feel like calling it such, but because we are facing a new beginning. A “fresh start” that more than a new chapter has the air of a great corrective patch or a new version of the original game that could give new life to the Overwatch competitive.
Unfortunately, a misstep has already been made and concerns the much discussed story mode. During the initial announcement, the developers had in fact ensured that Overwatch 2 would pay more attention to PvE (Player vs environment) modes. Story missions that carried on the fascinating lore of overwatch by letting us discover more about the past or even the future. Despite the good intentions, no PvE maps or campaigns are available at launch and only time, and any additions, will tell us more about this area.
The Overwatch 2 review short
Overwatch 2 could represent a glorious new beginning for the Heroes of Overwatch fallen victim to too superficial management and attention for such an important title. Aided by the Free-To-Play formula, this new “chapter” could revive the Overwatch phenomenon and everything that comes with it.
The novelties of this version are many and interesting and even if the main gameplay has not been scratched, the game seemed to us (also graphically) more streamlined and smooth. The lack of PvE campaigns has left us a little dumbfounded but the work done by Blizzard is remarkable and gives us hope for the future of Overwatch.
Overwatch 2 ora disponibile gratuitamente su PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows e Xbox Series X/S