Heroes never die:
An Overwatch retrospective
What does it take to create a great
video game? Most would say that strong, compelling and satisfying gameplay are
the crucial part, but story, visual design and music are also aspects needed to
take in consideration.
So with that in mind, how do you
create a great video game that somehow manages to defy the odds and end its
first year basically ten times as popular as it was when it first released?
So, in honour of its first birthday,
it’s time to look back on Overwatch.
Even just skimming through this blog
it’s easy to tell that I am a huge fan of Overwatch.
I regularly cover big in-game events, I sing its praises frequently, especially
when comparing other online shooters, and I placed it at number two on my best
games of 2016 list (a hard decision to make, but one I still stand by). I still
play it regularly, at least once a week, reaching the point where I’ve become
good at multiple characters.
So…why? Why has Overwatch outlasted most other games in the increasingly clogged first-person
multiplayer shooter genre?
I think a lot of it is thanks to the
asymmetrical gameplay that’s seen here. One of the biggest problems in even
good modern FPS games like Titanfall 2 is
that the multiplayer mode can often fall flat due to every match feeling more
or less like the same thing over and over and over again.
With Overwatch you get nothing like that. There are four different
gamemodes spread out over fourteen stages, and you have no idea which you’ll be
playing when you start up the game. Thanks to this you have no idea what’s
coming up next, making it much more exciting to jump in and play.
It also helps that each of the
characters play differently. Out of the twenty-four options in-game, there are
a grand total of zero clone characters. Each has a unique kit with their own
strengths and weaknesses, and oftentimes a player that is dominating as a
certain character will cause an entire opposing team to completely rethink
their strategy.
But a unique level select method and
varying playstyles isn’t really why I think Overwatch
has resonated so much with people. I think people kept the game running
through the year because of the characters and how they relate to them.
Each character in Overwatch has a backstory, a unique and fun design, and a specific
real-world nationality. Whereas most modern shooter characters are members of
the U.S. Military, Overwatch features
heroes from Japan, England, Mexico, and Australia among others. This variety
allows more people to see themselves in the characters they play as than if it was
another angry soldier guy avenging his dead friends that Activision seems to
love so much (hilariously, Overwatch takes
that trope and does it one better in the form of Soldier: 76).
The world of Overwatch is also ludicrously different than most games you see in
this genre. Instead of a grim dystopian future, this world is bright and
optimistic. Iran has gone from being war-torn to becoming a technological
paradise to rival Silicon Valley, same-sex relationships are as normal and
nonchalant as anything else, and humans and sentient robots are working towards
building a world where they can live hand-in-hand. It’s pretty unusual to see
such positivity in a game all about who can blow up their enemies the most.
How much people have fallen in love
with these characters and this world is evident by the outpouring of fanart the
game is still seeing a full year after launch. The fans have really taken these
characters and made them their own, creating fun interpretations of them, like
Soldier: 76 as a disgruntled dad and D.Va as a dorito-munching gremlin. In
turn, sometimes references to these fan creations make it into the game itself,
such as D.Va’s Halloween victory pose featuring hidden dorito chips.
Blizzard has always been great at
creating fun and interesting worlds to explore, and in my opinion Overwatch outclasses even Warcraft as their best one yet. Creating
characters that fans can relate to and really make their own on top of a game
with already incredibly stellar gameplay really makes me feel that this game
might just be the first in a new golden age for the FPS genre, one I think it
desperately needs.
Song of
the Week
Main Theme - Overwatch
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