Overwatch 2 : A Free Sequel, Good or bad?

By Reid DeJongh

10-5-22

On 10-4-22 Overwatch 2 officially released for free for all consoles and PC. It is available to buy on Blizzard/Battle.net and the console specific eshops. When logging into the game for the first time, the player gets a good amount of heroes unlocked and you can unlock the rest through challenges. My question before playing the game was if the new sequel was as good as Overwatch, since Overwatch 2 is free with an in store eshop.

The biggest difference between Overwatch 1 and 2 is there new maps and heroes to use. This is a good change. The maps are new and not elaborate or complex making it easy to navigate them. The heroes are fun and a lot different from other heroes. The new characters have cool and unique abilities that give them a different playstyle from other characters. Overall the game itself is great and just as fun as the original. But, there are way too many server issues to call the game as a whole amazing.

To start, it takes around 1 hour or more just to log in. Once you log in there is a chance you won’t get to load into a game at all. This alone ruins the game and makes it a lot less enjoyable.

Another thing that I found mildly annoying was that there were so many new players who knew nothing about the game. This caused me to lose lots of matches . I know that they are new and need some time to learn the game, but I wish that there was some form of skill based matching in casual.

The new eshop in Overwatch 2 is kind of cringey. Since they made Overwatch 2 free they needed a way to make money, so they added an eshop and battle pass for cosmetics. A lot of other games have been using this method to make money. The problem with this is that you can’t earn cosmetics for free, like you could in the original Overwatch. This is a really good way to make money, but it also makes the game seem more like a cash-grab than an actual competitive game.

In all, once they fix the server issues and everyone settles into the new Overwatch, I think that it will be a great game with a huge player base for years to come. I give the game a 6/10 with server issues and a 8.5/10 when they are fixed.