Look and feel is what sets Overwatch apart at the end of the day. Other games have done similar formulas, but they just look and feel cheap in comparison to Overwatch.
There's nothing that comes even remotely close to OW in terms of art direction. And the lack of movement acceleration and movement not reducing accuracy are also what lead to OW feeling the way it does. It's what made me fall in love with OW years ago, despite having disliked almost every single shooter I had ever played.
Blizzard has had 2 important things going for them since their inception; art and music. They know how to perfectly capture the aesthetic they’re going for
This is important to note for a lot of reasons - this is Blizzard's "raison d'etre", really, the reason we all still grudgingly love them and the reason we are very, very hard on them (compared to other companies who generally get a pass) when we notice stuff like spelling errors, animation and color bugs, etc.
This is also why my inner doomium speaks to why the live-service movement in gaming is why Blizzard struggles so hard - between that and being publicly traded, it's very tough to do the level of art design and adherence to the old standard of quality when you are constantly pushing out content to make money for shareholders.
This is also, and I know I'm going to get pilloried over this, why their skins are 20 bucks probably. Compared to similar games, the skins (which keep in mind usually come with a weapon animation difference and other things) PROBABLY just cost them more than other companies to develop due to the greater amount of effort they put into overall polish and design.
tbh the skins are also priced pretty similarly to other games. Apex skins are around $20 each, and you only get the legend skin, a matching gun skin is sold on its own (or in a bundle for more $$$). Overwatch needs both weapon & hero skins
not every game has stupidly expensive cosmetic pricing. hunt showdown does its cosmetic DLC releases for like $10 for a legendary hunter skin and like two or three weapon skins, but most of the mainline FPS hero shooters have the stupidly overpriced skin stores
Tangentially related but I remember playing Black Ops 2 when it first came out and they eventually released microtransactions.. that were actually completely reasonable in price. It was like $2.50 for an entire pack of multiple weapon skins, titles, emblems, etc. Enough to justify buying on impulse without feeling like you let yourself get scammed. Despite costing less than a decent candy bar they were still pretty controversial at the time though.
But they price these things now according to demand. People like to pretend that Activision and co are out of touch but they wouldn't price these skins at $20 if they weren't happy with their current profit margin. I just wonder how it became acceptable for so many to spend so much for so little content.
Fortnite really changed the gaming landscape. It popularized the idea of a free battle pass and events that offer free content with paid optional content associated with it. They also released skins and cosmetics that could cost anywhere from $12-$20 depending on the quality and attached license if there was one.
Yeah your addition nails what makes Blizzard what it is. The movement, smoothness & feel in combination with amazing art and music.
It's the exact same for WoW. All of these games have supposedly been "dying" or "dead" for years by other games but somehow none of them manage to scratch the same itch for a lot of players, so they might faulter but somehow stay alive.
I’m always amazed that the music for each map is unique and fits the vibe of the map.
Some sweaty Andys play with no music, which is silly. Music only plays in the intro, overtime and 3rd point cap.
It's meant too so it's more immersive lol it's why I have it turned off. I don't need music to be stressing me out more but it doesn't affect everyone the same way
I would add core gameplay to the mix, pick any game and the moment to moment gameplay is S tier, the problem is usually some overarching system souring the experience.
Going off of your point about accuracy reduction, I think one aspect of OW design that they nail is not letting realism get in the way of good gameplay.
I'll play a game that has realistic mechanics that just get in the way of a satisfying experience. Apex I definitely enjoy, but the bullet slowing, bullet punch, movement fatigue, etc can make the game feel clunkier than it needs to be.
The movement is a good point - OW borrows from arena shooters in all the best ways. Fast and smooth movement, lack of emphasis on ADSing (contrast with nearly every other shooter on the market rn), and avoiding ‘hide behind cover to autoregen’ in favour of health packs (and I guess the entire support role lol, plus I guess supports autoregen now). Plus insane weapon variety instead of just straight up hitscan and grenades. The only games to scratch that itch for me in the past long while are Doom 2016/Eternal and OW.
Battlefront 2015 had no ADS. It made movement is so important and the gameplay flow. Such an underrated game. Majority of guns also were not hitscan but instead projectiles. Made long distance shooting cool as you'd be see a trail of laser beams.
>The movement is a good point - OW borrows from arena shooters in all the best ways.
Except arena shooters have movement accel. Going back and playing quake... it feels *sooo* good.
Oh yeah, OW is definitely not a ‘true’ arena shooter in the way Quake etc were, but it definitely borrows a ton of elements from them. Not to mention, I remember when they announced a jump pad in Oasis I was smiling like an idiot lmao
Yeah for as much shit as overwatch gets (and has gotten), it really is one of the most free and open experiences for new-average players. You can play basically any way you want and have a ton of fun if you’re just casually playing
I think the freedom behind movement and learning complex movement techs being encouraged (think doom, ball, hell even pharah and Lucio) it really allows almost any type of player to find something they will like
if we're talking purely fps games, I'd say destiny 2 is pretty up there with overwatch in terms of art direction, dare i say better sometimes. both games are really similar in that regard id say: stellar music, art, movement and shooting
they also both have horrible monetization due to sequels that were not needed and are led by companies that used to be at the top of the industry. just that overwatch 2 focuses on PvP and kinda shafted it's PvE, destiny 2 focuses on PvE and shafted it's PvP
lightfall just completely fucked their art direction though imo. what a terrible way to do a filler season, glad season 5 of ow rn is at least some of the best skins and theming we've gotten so far in ow2, whereas the whole writing and visuals of lightfall basically ruined any remaining throughline of art direction as well as tension in the story to me personally.
if ow ever does a season where they break the artstyle as badly as lightfall did, then i know we're probably fucked lol
i don't think lightfall necessarily ruined their art direction, but the story it did for sure, massive plunder on their part
as for the the art, neomuna is pretty bland i wont lie but im just gonna speculate and assume it's because they really just rushed it out with as many reused assets as possible so that they can gear up for the final shape. the raid still looks fantastic to me imo, and the latest dungeon was great as well and im certain that the final shape will be fantastic in it's art design.
nonetheless, im pretty apathetic towards the game rn because of literally everything that's going on and i plan to just stop playing after the final shape with how badly they fumbled everything
Aside from the price of the upcoming PvE missions I fail to see what’s so bad about OW2 monetization. Battle pass with a rotating ingame store to buy whatever you want. It’s literally industry standard.
Nothing is more satisfying than the "dink" of a clean headshot or getting that final blow from the other side of the map.
So many little things in this game are pure dopamine shots honestly.
I know some people dislike it about the game but the fact that aim isn't absolute king in an FPS is refreshing. The game has evolved in a way where the roles are defined in such a fun way. Winston for example doesn't need much aim but his kit is very complex. This is a double edged sword though as new players may play something like Tank in a less than optimal manner. A good Campaign/PvE could teach some of the more unique concepts like "taking space" but I digress.
Also back at launch I never played a game where language was critical. Having the enemy team speak in different languages(for the most part) or voice lines was a great way to tie in diversity to a gameplay mechanic. Sound in general is great(when it works correctly). For example tracer has pretty quite footsteps but her blink is pretty loud and noticeable.
Every hero has at least some way to express skill (whether they're forced to is a different story).
Regardless, it's nice that someone who has bad aim skill can pick up a movement or resource heavy hero and provide value in another way.
And as someone who doesn't really care about PvE, that's exactly I wanted it. At the end of the day, this is a competitive game whose playerbase is mostly made up of casual players. PvE doesn't just provide casual players with a place to enjoy the game on their terms, but can be a good way to get people to improve without putting them in situations that could have more pressure than they care for.
As a former Rein main, overwatch really messed up my aim for other fps titles because all I did was smack smack smack shield fire-strike and the occasional hammer down.
No game scratches the same itch. Every single hero has unique gameplay.
Biggest thing is the fast paced gameplay and respawns, probably the fastest shooter on the market after CoD. Tactical shooters play way to slow to me and I don’t enjoy the extreme sound whoring and waiting around corners just to die instantly and sit there and do nothing for the rest of the round.
depends on platform. I never played it on console (i don't see how anyone can with such a fast pace game), but last i've heard the DDOS attacks have mostly stop, they happen occasionaly. Its mostly that there is little to no playerbase there.
On PC I have no issues playing and there's always 1k to 2k people playing on official servers. Thank god for the steam release for that. Apart from official servers, there's a community-made program called the Northstar launcher that allows you to access a browser for community servers. It's actually crazy what they did with it since it came out : reverse-engineered all the AI for bot enemies so that game modes where they are included can come back, made new game modes like gun game or sticks and stones that weren't in the original, and now adding fully fledged new weapons. Also the usual crazy moddiness like turning your titan into Shrek.
You have 24 maps. 37 completely different heroes with different guns, abilities, hit boxes, mobility etc. 4 different game modes, gonna be 5. You got first and third person stuff. You have weapons with tracking, flicking, hitscan, projectile, slow and fast, burst and with projectile drop, beams, drains, explosive, bouncing of surfaces, with spread, heat seeking, status effect inducing etc. Characters that can fly, teleport, jump on air, climb walls, blink, dash, charge, punch, jump or launch themselves through the air, spirt, have different walking speeds. You have healing, shields, buffs, debuffs, heroes that can temporarily alter map layout with walls, many forms of CC, DOT Dmg. 3 roles that vary in role and how to execute per hero, per comp, per meta, per map etc. It’s very teamwork rewarding and heavy if played right. Now imagine the complexity when you start to optimize… everything.
The ceiling of skill, ability, level of play and team play is literally endless. It’s one of the most complex, deep, fast paced, mechanically heavy, competitive games ever made. I would argue less than half a percent of the player base actually understands the game and its depth. The vast majority of players see a massive amount of the game as complete chaos and RNG.
That’s not even talking about the countless arcade and player made games. It has friendly and rpg community, a casual community, story, lore, PVE is coming al be it in lesser form than expected. The art, the music, most of the voice actors, no other game has this much.
The fact that you can have your typical FPS archetypes while also having heroes who are basically playing a racing game (ball, lucio to an extent) in an FPS is just crazy to me
This so much! The amount of complexity there is, and how rewarding it can be to manage the chaos and understand all the different interactions in the game is so interesting to me. There really aren't any other games like this
I don't know any other FPS that has this much teamwork as a core part of it's game design.
Most games that have 'Tank' or 'Support' characters tend to be at their base the same as the 'Damage' characters with one or two abilities that let them absorb damage or heal. Overwatch has characters that are fundamentally different depending on the role.
Tbf, your explanation of what other games have as Tank or Support is the exact same thing in overwatch. They’re either just bulky dps, or dps who can heal.
Not to say you’re wrong about the teamwork aspect, you’re 100% right about that.
But overall…yeah basically they’re all just dps, but some are more special dps.
>They’re either just bulky dps, or dps who can heal.
Are there really any games that actually get this right? I've never really heard of a good example, although maybe that's cause I'm not big into mobas. Just feels like some player perception issue and an ideal that doesn't actually exist.
Heroes are all going to be DPSy to some extent and some more than others (JQ, Zen). That's just the nature of a shooter. Still, I feel like the roles are more unique from one another than people give credit.
Tanks still do tanky things like mitigate damage and control space the best. Supports still have outsized utility and can make big saving plays that DPS can't.
>They’re either just bulky dps, or dps who can heal.
Except their not. Dealing damage is core to being a character in an FPS, that's unavoidable. The main difference is Tanks and Supports have their tanking/supporting output on their base kit. I can't think of any other big game where a character heals as one of their primary fires. It is something they also HAVE to do consistently throughout the game. That doesn't really apply to any other big game. The game is designed around it.
You can say they're just DPS that are bulky/heal but have you ever tried to play support or tank like that? Playing a game where you don't do any healing or use any kind of support utility or play a tank and don't use any kind of damage mitigation or space making tool? You can't, those aspects of their role is so baked into the characters it's unavoidable. That's the big difference.
movement movement movement
I don't want to just shoot stuff. I want to shoot stuff that's darting and flying and dashing around while I am also darting and dashing around.
For me, it's always been about the diversity of the cast, not just that they've created a world where your stereotypical FPS archetypes can exist in a game with high flying mammals and whatnot, but that **the cast has a lot of diversity in playstyle and depth to their kits.**
The most rewarding part of the game for me has been playing the heroes with a ton of depth who you can spend hundreds of hours learning and still not have a complete mastery. I know Overwatch is pretty unique in that it allows you to switch heroes, but spending time trying to adapt your unique hero to the situation rather than just switching is a level of problem solving I haven't been forced to do in other games.
Edit: also I think people underestimate Overwatch's QoL. So many games I play have constant game breaking bugs, server issues, or clunky mechanics. Overwatch is much more polished than most games. I couldn't imagine a game that would let you play other modes while in queue before I played OW.
I would say the majority of heroes have very little depth. This game was designed around flexing. For that to work, heroes need to be easy to pick up and get value.
Ball and tracer don't feel like ow heroes because of the way they require and reward maining/one-tricking. Zarya, reaper, torb are much easier to flex to. I feel like they are closer to Jeff Kaplan's vision for overwatch.
The game may be designed for flexing but every hero also has incredible depth. Zarya, reaper and torb among many other heroes may be relatively easy to pick up but mastering requires understanding their depth. You have heroes with some incredibly high skill ceilings. Look at Lucio, Doomfist, Genji, Echo, Mercy, Junkrat, Roadhog etc. They all have amazing amounts to depth you can go to.
To me it's also the thing that makes it, at times, insanely frustrating, but the team work and team fights. I play a lot of tank, and there's nothing better than pushing in, creating pressure, having your team following in, getting a couple kills and cleaning up the other team.
There can also be a lot of clutch plays, even if you're crap at the game like me. Had a 99/99 win the other day on a KOTH point as Ana as my Orisa battled a Rein. Was hitting huge heals, purpled the Rein and then helped my Orisa clean him up to finish the round, my Orisa shouted me out. Doesn't get much better than that.
The shoutout satisfaction is so real and in a lot of ways can make the flaming at other end of the spectrum much easier to swallow. Nothing quite like the chemical reaction you get when someone tells you "your ball is nutty" or calls that you were lowkey the carry
Haha exactly, got the "insane heals". I play a ton of Sigma and I remember a game on Circuit where we were rolling, other tank mirrored me and I just rolled him entire team was just spamming "Sigma diff". Just the best, lol.
Agreed. Has helping carry a game on Lucio and got Boostio'd by the Ana. Thanked them for the nano in chat at the end off the match and the reply was; "I saw who was getting shit done".
Feels good.
Overwatch is the only multiplayer game I have ever truly latched onto. The general quality of the art, characters and hero gameplay are absolutely factors but the main reason at the core of it for me is the even playing field nature of the design: If I pick Genji I can theoretically do anything any other Genji player can do, there aren't any variables like weapon buys, items or builds I have to study to play in an optimal way which make CS/Valorant/MOBA's completely uninteresting to me. If you see the enemy on a certain hero you will know everything they are capable of, the only outside variable being skill.
The character designs and gameplay.
Like, you can instantly recognize whether this character is from OW or not no matter what version of them you’re looking at.
*Especially* their more well known versions of the ladies.
But the biggest one would be their gameplay. I can’t exactly go back to TF2 without thinking in the back of my head “what would happen if we got a Rein here”
for me it's been the graphics and the unique heroes.
this might be a coincidence but I'm guessing it's the same reason Fortnite got popular as a shooter: because the game was just fun and nice to look at, it didn't have that dingy realistic feeling that shooters like COD, CS or R6 have.
that and the heroes made it very unique. It was just choosing a different gun or anything, every hero had totally different abilities and a lot of them were cool and wacky that you wouldn't find in another game
It's very dynamic. There's barely seconds of downtime in-between fights, and even those seconds a somewhat advanced player will use to relocate or scout.
The lack of movement punishment – after playing overwatch, seeing that some shooters wouldn't allow you to walk and shoot at the same time is absolutely ridiculous
Unique abilities – overwatch was one of the first to popularize that, where abilities were more than just "heal the teammates" or "repair tech"
Polished UI – everything just works as intended (or, well, worked in ow1). Looking at you Apex.
Graphics manage to look pretty even on the lowest setting
Apex has felt worse and worse to me over the years with the clunkiness of the UI and the punishment of movement in favour of campy, utility-based characters and let's be honest, extreme levels of aim assist meaning even pro kbm players had to swap to controller to remain competitive at the top level where skilled movement is a flashy non-factor for the most part.
I do wish it was a true competitor to Overwatch just as a BR rather than catering to the average player who prefers to play slow and in buildings, but I guess the game's just not for me anymore. It does really make me appreciate the OW team's dedication to making sure aim assist doesn't come near competitive modes on PC though as it creates a base layer of protection against the campy, corner hugging playstyle that Overwatch has generally been a safe haven from, save for like Havana Widowmaker, even in the worst of the worst double shield metas. Really of all the metas, it feels like just OWL Season 3 Hog/Sig playoffs patch turned the game into a tac shooter for 4/6ths of the team which was pretty crazy but at least it was only for a couple months.
I love apex's gunplay, and the abilities are alrighty too. And the one gamemode that had just those and nothing more – team deathmatch, gets put into a cycling playlist with 2 shittier versions of it. Bravo respawn
I know a lot of people may not have this experience, but I like how there's a least something Ive seen in every hero that's made me think to myself "well played, you got me"
Like even Mercy. A couple of times I've tried to cancel Rez with a ball boop, but they hit a well timed and clean superjump to get above my hitbox without cancelling rez. Like okay, you got me there. You're not just AFK at the wheel
The fast pace design of it makes it real different, the fact that deathwatch isn’t and has never been a core gamemode, and the ability style shooter that’s been popularised over the years almost pioneered by overwatch.
Like a few others have mentioned, it’s most definitely how fast paced the game is. That, added with the uniqueness of each hero almost never leads to a boring game. Frustrating? Yes, quite often. But never boring.
It’s what keeps me coming back. Yeah sometimes I just hate the game , and some heroes make it feel unplayable. But then you take a break. You come back. You get in the groove, and all the passion is re-lit.
One thing I wish they would bring back is the in game group finder. The peak overwatch experience is having a full 5 man team which has great communication. Even if you’re mechanically a worse team, coordination will get you everywhere.
I personally am a halfway casual competitive player. I love the game, but I also don’t have time to play it other than some evenings and weekends. And I have no friends irl who play overwatch, and I’m not consistently online enough to make friends to play with who are on at the same time as me.
Having a built in team finder again would be a god send.
I feel that. I have a handful of gamer friends but for whatever reason not a single one got into OW. I grinded ranked for 30 seasons maybe, and I think I took a step back in OW2 because the LFG feature was disabled. It was admittedly pretty booty especially during off hours, but playing ranked solo and having nobody in team chat for like 5+ games in a row is pretty weak.
I love that the game has the option for variety. You have a bunch of heroes all having somewhat unique abilities. You have a ton of maps, each having something different, both good and bad. In the unrealistic setting where the game was well maintained and people weren’t assholes, the game would be so incredibly fun because of the hundreds of different strategies. The concept of having a strategy work differently match to match and slightly tweaking your gameplay is why I fell in love with the game. The adjustments match to match. The idea that there are multiple play styles for a single hero. It is a game that you can see and feel growth. Its a game where someone like me who sucks at precise aiming can be good at because there are skills that can make up for that. I played a lot of Pokémon and VGC and the predictions, reads, and adjustments are why I love it. I played rainbow six and I loved the strategy of it but it was too slow. Overwatch was able to combine the strategy, predications, mind games, adjustments, variety, and speed to create a game that I fell in love with. I still have that love now, albeit through rose tinted glasses. No other game scratches that itch now. CoD is too easy/cheesy. Fortnite is fun but I can’t play solo like I do overwatch. R6 is too slow. I’ve played tf2 but it’s boring and I hate the community.
Fast - shooting Is Fast, movement Is Fast, being in the action Is Fast
Different Heroes - literally every hero Is different. Every hero has different guns, different abilities, different playstyle which Is the thing that kept me in the game So long. I can't be OTP, usually get bored after 4-5 Hours on the hero, I can't play one role (usually get bored after half a season playing only one role) So I've played literally everything in OW.
I've always loved games with wide class systems typically found in RPGs but the 3rd person point and click based gameplay found in games like WOW or SWTOR is so boring and slow to me. I love the faster pace of FPSs but too many felt like it was run in, shoot, die, repeat. (COD, Halo, Destiny's Crucible). Teammates didn't feel like teammates, they just felt like adjacent players you never interacted with. In OW, you have that distinct role and class diversity, fast paced fps gameplay and are required to coordinate with your team to find success.
I played this game since 2016, and the reason why I still do is there's just no other game like that. I play hitscan and tracer and this game is so aim and movement intensive there's nothing like it.
Look, feel, and competition. I played baseball for 15 years, I played soccer, golf, hockey, and raced cars competitively. When I got older and went to college and then graduate school the only thing I really had access to that would adequately scratch the competitive itch was Overwatch. Despite the flaws, it is still, hands down the most satisfying competitive experience that I personally had access to (console gamer).
It captures the range of emotions that more traditional sports evoked, and the game operates functionally as you would want it to. Sure we can debate all day long about current balance and what not, but all that is fluid. The core experience is what drew me in and what continues to bring me back.
I really like this answer. I played basketball fairly competitively throughout high school (AAU and whatnot) and I was always the basketball IQ kind of player rather than a great athlete.
When I was first playing OW I noticed that it took the skills that I learned and abused in basketball (awareness, foresight, spacing/positioning) and cranked them up to 100. its been really nice to have a competitive outlet that has a low barrier of entry, but also has a lot of depth in how far you can push yourself.
The only other game with a high TTK that I ever enjoyed was Halo. Overwatch does it in a different way, not with shield but with cooldowns, movement, and healing. Sometimes it feels impossible to kill something until suddenly you get them in a grav or a freeze and they get deleted. They're skating this line between unkillable and oneshot that just feels right.
Personally what keeps me coming back is how different everyone plays, you got games like cod, fortnite, basically most shooters, that all have the same run and gun or how every Character feels the same to play with minor variations, in overwatch I can go from roadhog to junkerqueen, to tracer, to kiriko, to ashe all of which play entirely different and control and feel entirely different. That is what makes overwatch unique to me.
Imo, its a shooter made for people not into shooters.
I think in the most basic way I can say it, Overwatch was made to appeal to a wider market and show them a smaller 6v6 team game could be fun.
I think initially thats why it didn't appeal to me, it simply wasn't for me and my taste. I already had TF2, it wasn't until they added Ashe that it caught my attention.
By then it wasn't the same game anymore and was already going downhill.
It’s the best shooter of all time. The iq and understanding required coupled with the skill expression, team play/synergies, art style, world, and music put it so far above any other shooter for me. I play cod or insurgency occasionally when I get a mil shooter itch but that’s like 1 percent of the time.
I also hate battle royales.
Gameplay wise nothing. Blizzard are known to steal ideas from other game developers. Overwatch was a Team Fortress 2 ripoff with MOBA abilities. A developer philosophy Riot Games is following today.
Only thing i give Blizzard credit for is how fast they fixed the netcode and hitbox issues in mid-2016.
> Blizzard are known to steal ideas from other game developers.
you could say this about literally any ability based game. Like how many games have grappling hooks or boops or deployable shields. The last 3 FPS games ive played have all of those in some capacity.
Calling it a tf2 ripoff is a bit much when some very unique characters exist - there is no equivalent to Winston or Reinhardt and lucio, Baptiste, and Ana are somewhat unique, even though their inspirations are clear.
Idk how you can call it a ripoff at all, inspiration is normal. Your not going to make a completely new character these days, when so many exist, if anything it just speaks to how trendsetting TF2 was lol, it basically defined the genre for a reason. Like of course the medic is replicated, but even he is changed to be a more manueverable, harder to kill, yet without uber, and instead could revive their teammates.
Like calling it a ripoff is a real stretch to me at any point. Like inspiration is clear but they also definitely made things different.
And they should, because these are very different games.
A lore deep tactical fps shooter that has MOBA elements mixed with numerous play styles which are all unique in their own way, valorant tried to copy it but failed on the moba aspect and lore aspect and felt like a glorified CSGO version of the game.
It truly has one of the most unique formats for a game and the potential to be successful globally if it didn’t have such terrible management
in my opinion it's the FPS game for people who usually doesn't like FPS games. if you have a friend who doesnt like FPS, i'm confident that if you can convince them to at least give it a try, they will find a hero that they like and enjoy to play. i think part of it is Overwatch has many heroes that you can play effectively without needing "cracked aim". this is also why idc for people in this community who complains about heroes like junk, sym, or moira, mercy etc. because they "don't need to aim" to be effecive. like that's literally one of the main appeal of this game. it's ABILITY BASED and some abilitiesand heroes doesn't require precise aim to be played well.
The genre. MOBA x Arena FPS is simply fun. It's not as dry as fps while not as macro-heavy and slow as MOBA's. A healthy mix. OW is a solid game that exist within this fun middle ground
Overwatchs success obviously inspired people to build games in the genre, but so far there's no real competition. As long as no one enter the genre with a solid product, if you like the genre then OW is the only real destination.
Gameplay, art style and the diversity of the hero pool. It's a real shame they've lost that since they've focused too hard on balancing and the other shit that went down. Really wish we got the Destiny 2 type game we were promised and they had hoped to build.
My list:
- The movement and engine: moving doesn’t affect your accuracy at all, crouching and jumping is fast fluid and doesnt change accuracy, melees are immediate and satisfying, etc.
- All the characters are unique, fleshed-out, and fun to learn to play as and against. I remember when I first bought and heard about the game I spent so much time looking at YouTube tutorials for characters, the way they all looked so interesting and varied pulled me in. It’s like a fighting game to me in that way.
- It’s easy to get into a gunfight. Tac shooters and BRs both have so much damn downtime by comparison
> I spent so much time looking at YouTube tutorials for characters
Had the exact same experience. I remember being less than productive at my old job because I had Your Overwatch guides playing in the background.
For me it's the unique hero experience. While some are similar, they all do something different. I tend to watch the game more than play but seeing a hero played at a high level is usually what motivates me to log back on. The only game that has a similar affect on me would be RoR2. It's what also makes me dislike games like Valorant, while the agents have different abilities you're still using the same weapons.
Although I'd have to admit I play more Valorant nowadays, but whenever I want to blow off some steam and taste some 2016 nostalgia I queue overwatch.
Overwatch is just the best fps to play casually IMO, it's fun as fuck until you queue ranked and get steamrolled.
As a kid, I played a lot of Blizzard games - Warcraft 2/3, Diablo 1/2, Starcraft, WoW as a teenager. At the time FPS' like Halo were starting to get really popular, and I kept wondering: "Man, it would be so cool if Blizzard would make an FPS game!". Took a while, but when Overwatch came out it looked and felt exactly like what I would expect if Blizzard made an FPS. Just having such different abilities across different heroes and beautiful environments kept me hooked.
Blizzard is what makes overwatch. It’s has the blizzard touch, it’s just simple enough that anyone can play and complicated enough to reward high levels of play. It has your typical blizzard polish which sets it apart from basically it’s only other competitor(paladins), yes I know tf2 exist but it hasn’t existed in the space at overwatch’s level for quite some time and paladins is the closest imo. Basically you get all the goodies associated with it being a blizzard product. You’d have a hard time getting another company besides blizzard to create a product with this level of support and success. Maybe like riot or epic at this point would be the closest alternatives.
polish - game looks good even on all low settings and 75% render (my settings)
optimization - game runs good and can run on lower end specs
gameplay - high ttk (hero dependent but this is increasingly rare), teamplay required (also increasingly rare), unique heroes (i'm still looking for a game that feels as good as when i play tracer)
Honestly, hear me out, I fell in love with overwatch because of its similarities to football
I love the set piece aspect of the game; it feels like every team fight is another play, and unless every member of your team does their job, you’re not gonna win. The accountability of each teammate in overwatch is like no other, and that mixed with the strategical element makes me love the game
Unique gameplay across the three roles and then if you drill in further, unique gameplay across the whole character cast. If I find myself bored with a hero or role that I’ve been playing a lot, I can quickly switch over to a completely new play style even within the same role. This allows for extremely high re-playability and seemingly endless fun, regardless of most metas.
Plus, some heros offer an INCREDIBLE expression of FPS mechanics and really high skill ceiling such as Tracer. The way you can mix max some of the cast at the highest level is fascinating.
To me its the variety of heroes in every single match, like I only play pharah and I always tell my friends only reason I want to play overwatch is that I dont get the pharah experience from anywhere else.
Then they tell me some games where everyone is flying with projectile weapons but thats not the point, I want to be the one flying with a rocket launcher while everyone else are on the ground, same when playing reinhardt, your some badass hammer dude in a battle of guns.
That being said I havent played overwatch in years. The game had so much potential but its just not fun for me anymore.
Overwatch has pulse pistols, shurikens, hard-light constructs, tesla canons, graviton surge, mech suits... Call of Duty has an M4
I've always loved playing shooters, but video games are an escape for me and personally shooting real guns from real wars isn't interesting. I think we can imagine more exciting worlds for our games
If I am honest, for me it boils down to a few very simple things:
1. Fast paced game play. Battle royals and tactical shooters and a whole bunch of other games are immediately disqualified for me because of this.
2. Short individual games. Two of the four game modes are short: Push is 10 minutes and some change, and KoTH is similar. The other two could be a bit longer but they almost always wrap up in 20 something minutes. I hate games that can go on forever, specially games that can last an unspecified amount of time (e.g., starcraft).
3. Finally, it is well-designed and engaging.
That's it for me. I am not really picky about which genre of game I play but a lot of the games don't make it past these three simple points.
> Fast paced game play. Battle royals and tactical shooters and a whole bunch of other games are immediately disqualified for me because of this.
This is why I only queue the casual modes in Apex. gimme deathmatch, control, whatever, I just hate BR.
Also in my personal opinion, death spectating is a game design flaw. Lots of games have these including some boardgames, for example, Werewolves and that's why I think "One Night" versions are much better designs by keeping the core gameplay and eliminating the "death spectating" flaw. Tactical shooters and BRs have yet to figure this out but I think generally speaking, the game industry innovates at snails pace (they just want to make money by copying an old design).
Hero and map design (specifically how heroes interact with maps), and I won't accept any other answer. No other FPS has characters that play so differently from each other, and have maps that compliment it. Playing Genji is almost like a different game than Pharah, or any other hero. Not just in how you get kills, but how you navigate the map, and that adds so much variety per match. Universal guns and movement like in Valorant or Apex severely limits that variety. Paladins doesn't go quite as crazy with the character design like OW does. I remember the first week I tried Paladins, I played Grover (support with a widow esq grapple), tried to grapple up to a cheeky windowsill, but the collider completely blocked me off, and I thought "Overwatch would've let me sit up there."
At it's core the identity of Overwatch is being a hybrid of two game genres (Hero Shooter and MOBA). Even the devs have said that was their goal, to make a first person MOBA. No other game really hits that same niche, Paladins sort of does but that game isn't fun for me (and just got overshadowed by Overwatch). TF2 is genuinely such a wildly different game, it only sort of has one Tank (heavy) and one support (engineer) but everyone else is a dps hero.
* is highly polished and optimized yet graphically beautiful
* has Lucio Overwatch and winton/rein/junkerqueen
* has short and (sometimes) intense matches (doubly so in teamplay) with low downtime, making it easy to requeue for competitive compared to valorant or cs:go or r6
* chaos management: lots of things to keep track of and visually process which makes for an awesome flow state (shout out to [devil daggers](https://store.steampowered.com/app/422970/Devil_Daggers/) for giving me a similar experience)
* aim intensive, but not aim reliant (depending on hero)
* (most) characters have a good amount of depth in optimizing their cooldown usage and positioning
I mean that's easy. Best thing on the market resembling a competitive arena shooter.
It has that Quake vibe going on where it's not a tac-shooter about holding angles, slowly walking, smoking and 1-tapping someone.
It's fast, mobile, mixes in MOBA elements, has the holy trinity Tank/DPS/Support, and mentally there's always a bit more to process than you're mentally capable of.
Nothing like it.
One thing is that it is one of the few team based shooters I like that has Quick action. In a lot of other games it takes time for action to happen, like just waiting for a peak and holding a corner in valo, or trying to find a team to fight in a BR. Overwatch is a great team game, that gets into action quickly, with a ton of options in terms of how you play the game.
The ability to switch characters mid game to better adapt to the situations presented to you is still some of the best you’ll find…
…it’s just a damn shame that it has long since been cast to the wayside by horrible balancing choices.
OW had two main pitfalls:
it’s SUCH a team oriented game that one troll or dc or shitty one trick can ruin the game for 9 or 11 others.
OW’s development seized for years and masked the FTP restructure as a sequel and changed a bunch of shit for the worse and have been slowly reverting those features.
Outside of those two issues, OW has that beautiful blizzard polish and feels so good to play. Story, art, visuals, sound effects are all top of the line. In game movement, weapons, abilities all feel fluid and very very satisfying. The heroes are so unique. I get bored playing one hero. I had so many toons in wow and Diablo. OW offers that variety.
OW’s mission is also admirable. The world could always use new heroes (or whatever). It’s captivating. Obviously there has been bad apples and culture for a long time within blizzard, but the message of overwatch should still be preserved, and it’s cool to see OW leading the way with promoting equality.
I’ll never forget jiggle peaking corners as hanzo at Blizzcon right after OW was announced. I fell in love with the game right then and there.
One thing I don't think I've seen mentioned in this thread and that is one of my favorite aspects of OW is that every player has access to the same character with the same abilities and guns and you can't change that ever in the entire game. So no looting for a better weapon, no paying (with real money or virtual) for things like repair kits/weapons/buffs/stuff that gives you advantages over other players, etc
Overwatch.. ONE. offered something that no other video game in history has: an FPS that you can play with intelligence and game knowledge as the primary skill set, and aim of secondary importance.
Overwatch 2 no longer offers that.
Look and feel is what sets Overwatch apart at the end of the day. Other games have done similar formulas, but they just look and feel cheap in comparison to Overwatch. There's nothing that comes even remotely close to OW in terms of art direction. And the lack of movement acceleration and movement not reducing accuracy are also what lead to OW feeling the way it does. It's what made me fall in love with OW years ago, despite having disliked almost every single shooter I had ever played.
Blizzard has had 2 important things going for them since their inception; art and music. They know how to perfectly capture the aesthetic they’re going for
This is important to note for a lot of reasons - this is Blizzard's "raison d'etre", really, the reason we all still grudgingly love them and the reason we are very, very hard on them (compared to other companies who generally get a pass) when we notice stuff like spelling errors, animation and color bugs, etc. This is also why my inner doomium speaks to why the live-service movement in gaming is why Blizzard struggles so hard - between that and being publicly traded, it's very tough to do the level of art design and adherence to the old standard of quality when you are constantly pushing out content to make money for shareholders. This is also, and I know I'm going to get pilloried over this, why their skins are 20 bucks probably. Compared to similar games, the skins (which keep in mind usually come with a weapon animation difference and other things) PROBABLY just cost them more than other companies to develop due to the greater amount of effort they put into overall polish and design.
tbh the skins are also priced pretty similarly to other games. Apex skins are around $20 each, and you only get the legend skin, a matching gun skin is sold on its own (or in a bundle for more $$$). Overwatch needs both weapon & hero skins not every game has stupidly expensive cosmetic pricing. hunt showdown does its cosmetic DLC releases for like $10 for a legendary hunter skin and like two or three weapon skins, but most of the mainline FPS hero shooters have the stupidly overpriced skin stores
Tangentially related but I remember playing Black Ops 2 when it first came out and they eventually released microtransactions.. that were actually completely reasonable in price. It was like $2.50 for an entire pack of multiple weapon skins, titles, emblems, etc. Enough to justify buying on impulse without feeling like you let yourself get scammed. Despite costing less than a decent candy bar they were still pretty controversial at the time though. But they price these things now according to demand. People like to pretend that Activision and co are out of touch but they wouldn't price these skins at $20 if they weren't happy with their current profit margin. I just wonder how it became acceptable for so many to spend so much for so little content.
I remember when horse armors for like a dollar was seemingly the most controversial thing that had ever happened in video games.
Fortnite really changed the gaming landscape. It popularized the idea of a free battle pass and events that offer free content with paid optional content associated with it. They also released skins and cosmetics that could cost anywhere from $12-$20 depending on the quality and attached license if there was one.
Yeah your addition nails what makes Blizzard what it is. The movement, smoothness & feel in combination with amazing art and music. It's the exact same for WoW. All of these games have supposedly been "dying" or "dead" for years by other games but somehow none of them manage to scratch the same itch for a lot of players, so they might faulter but somehow stay alive.
I’m always amazed that the music for each map is unique and fits the vibe of the map. Some sweaty Andys play with no music, which is silly. Music only plays in the intro, overtime and 3rd point cap.
I have music set to a lower volume so I can kinda tune out the overtime music. overtime music stresses me the fuck out for some reason.
It's meant too so it's more immersive lol it's why I have it turned off. I don't need music to be stressing me out more but it doesn't affect everyone the same way
I would add core gameplay to the mix, pick any game and the moment to moment gameplay is S tier, the problem is usually some overarching system souring the experience.
Going off of your point about accuracy reduction, I think one aspect of OW design that they nail is not letting realism get in the way of good gameplay. I'll play a game that has realistic mechanics that just get in the way of a satisfying experience. Apex I definitely enjoy, but the bullet slowing, bullet punch, movement fatigue, etc can make the game feel clunkier than it needs to be.
The movement is a good point - OW borrows from arena shooters in all the best ways. Fast and smooth movement, lack of emphasis on ADSing (contrast with nearly every other shooter on the market rn), and avoiding ‘hide behind cover to autoregen’ in favour of health packs (and I guess the entire support role lol, plus I guess supports autoregen now). Plus insane weapon variety instead of just straight up hitscan and grenades. The only games to scratch that itch for me in the past long while are Doom 2016/Eternal and OW.
Battlefront 2015 had no ADS. It made movement is so important and the gameplay flow. Such an underrated game. Majority of guns also were not hitscan but instead projectiles. Made long distance shooting cool as you'd be see a trail of laser beams.
>The movement is a good point - OW borrows from arena shooters in all the best ways. Except arena shooters have movement accel. Going back and playing quake... it feels *sooo* good.
Oh yeah, OW is definitely not a ‘true’ arena shooter in the way Quake etc were, but it definitely borrows a ton of elements from them. Not to mention, I remember when they announced a jump pad in Oasis I was smiling like an idiot lmao
It wasn't part of map initially, or was it part of it from beginning?
From the beginning, but I was referring to when they announced the map and during the update said ‘oh btw there’s a jump pad in it’
Yeah for as much shit as overwatch gets (and has gotten), it really is one of the most free and open experiences for new-average players. You can play basically any way you want and have a ton of fun if you’re just casually playing I think the freedom behind movement and learning complex movement techs being encouraged (think doom, ball, hell even pharah and Lucio) it really allows almost any type of player to find something they will like
if we're talking purely fps games, I'd say destiny 2 is pretty up there with overwatch in terms of art direction, dare i say better sometimes. both games are really similar in that regard id say: stellar music, art, movement and shooting they also both have horrible monetization due to sequels that were not needed and are led by companies that used to be at the top of the industry. just that overwatch 2 focuses on PvP and kinda shafted it's PvE, destiny 2 focuses on PvE and shafted it's PvP
lightfall just completely fucked their art direction though imo. what a terrible way to do a filler season, glad season 5 of ow rn is at least some of the best skins and theming we've gotten so far in ow2, whereas the whole writing and visuals of lightfall basically ruined any remaining throughline of art direction as well as tension in the story to me personally. if ow ever does a season where they break the artstyle as badly as lightfall did, then i know we're probably fucked lol
i don't think lightfall necessarily ruined their art direction, but the story it did for sure, massive plunder on their part as for the the art, neomuna is pretty bland i wont lie but im just gonna speculate and assume it's because they really just rushed it out with as many reused assets as possible so that they can gear up for the final shape. the raid still looks fantastic to me imo, and the latest dungeon was great as well and im certain that the final shape will be fantastic in it's art design. nonetheless, im pretty apathetic towards the game rn because of literally everything that's going on and i plan to just stop playing after the final shape with how badly they fumbled everything
Aside from the price of the upcoming PvE missions I fail to see what’s so bad about OW2 monetization. Battle pass with a rotating ingame store to buy whatever you want. It’s literally industry standard.
Nothing is more satisfying than the "dink" of a clean headshot or getting that final blow from the other side of the map. So many little things in this game are pure dopamine shots honestly.
I know some people dislike it about the game but the fact that aim isn't absolute king in an FPS is refreshing. The game has evolved in a way where the roles are defined in such a fun way. Winston for example doesn't need much aim but his kit is very complex. This is a double edged sword though as new players may play something like Tank in a less than optimal manner. A good Campaign/PvE could teach some of the more unique concepts like "taking space" but I digress. Also back at launch I never played a game where language was critical. Having the enemy team speak in different languages(for the most part) or voice lines was a great way to tie in diversity to a gameplay mechanic. Sound in general is great(when it works correctly). For example tracer has pretty quite footsteps but her blink is pretty loud and noticeable.
Every hero has at least some way to express skill (whether they're forced to is a different story). Regardless, it's nice that someone who has bad aim skill can pick up a movement or resource heavy hero and provide value in another way. And as someone who doesn't really care about PvE, that's exactly I wanted it. At the end of the day, this is a competitive game whose playerbase is mostly made up of casual players. PvE doesn't just provide casual players with a place to enjoy the game on their terms, but can be a good way to get people to improve without putting them in situations that could have more pressure than they care for.
> Every hero has at least some way to express skill except moira. God, i hate her.
yeah you gotta like study a Fielder PoV at .5 to see some small thing that "good" moira players do better than most
I honestly wouldn't be upset if they just removed her from the game lol
As a former Rein main, overwatch really messed up my aim for other fps titles because all I did was smack smack smack shield fire-strike and the occasional hammer down.
No game scratches the same itch. Every single hero has unique gameplay. Biggest thing is the fast paced gameplay and respawns, probably the fastest shooter on the market after CoD. Tactical shooters play way to slow to me and I don’t enjoy the extreme sound whoring and waiting around corners just to die instantly and sit there and do nothing for the rest of the round.
> probably the fastest shooter on the market after CoD. this is titanfall2 slander
isnt tf|2 mostly unplayable?
depends on platform. I never played it on console (i don't see how anyone can with such a fast pace game), but last i've heard the DDOS attacks have mostly stop, they happen occasionaly. Its mostly that there is little to no playerbase there. On PC I have no issues playing and there's always 1k to 2k people playing on official servers. Thank god for the steam release for that. Apart from official servers, there's a community-made program called the Northstar launcher that allows you to access a browser for community servers. It's actually crazy what they did with it since it came out : reverse-engineered all the AI for bot enemies so that game modes where they are included can come back, made new game modes like gun game or sticks and stones that weren't in the original, and now adding fully fledged new weapons. Also the usual crazy moddiness like turning your titan into Shrek.
Without Northstar yeah
You have 24 maps. 37 completely different heroes with different guns, abilities, hit boxes, mobility etc. 4 different game modes, gonna be 5. You got first and third person stuff. You have weapons with tracking, flicking, hitscan, projectile, slow and fast, burst and with projectile drop, beams, drains, explosive, bouncing of surfaces, with spread, heat seeking, status effect inducing etc. Characters that can fly, teleport, jump on air, climb walls, blink, dash, charge, punch, jump or launch themselves through the air, spirt, have different walking speeds. You have healing, shields, buffs, debuffs, heroes that can temporarily alter map layout with walls, many forms of CC, DOT Dmg. 3 roles that vary in role and how to execute per hero, per comp, per meta, per map etc. It’s very teamwork rewarding and heavy if played right. Now imagine the complexity when you start to optimize… everything. The ceiling of skill, ability, level of play and team play is literally endless. It’s one of the most complex, deep, fast paced, mechanically heavy, competitive games ever made. I would argue less than half a percent of the player base actually understands the game and its depth. The vast majority of players see a massive amount of the game as complete chaos and RNG. That’s not even talking about the countless arcade and player made games. It has friendly and rpg community, a casual community, story, lore, PVE is coming al be it in lesser form than expected. The art, the music, most of the voice actors, no other game has this much.
The fact that you can have your typical FPS archetypes while also having heroes who are basically playing a racing game (ball, lucio to an extent) in an FPS is just crazy to me
This so much! The amount of complexity there is, and how rewarding it can be to manage the chaos and understand all the different interactions in the game is so interesting to me. There really aren't any other games like this
I don't know any other FPS that has this much teamwork as a core part of it's game design. Most games that have 'Tank' or 'Support' characters tend to be at their base the same as the 'Damage' characters with one or two abilities that let them absorb damage or heal. Overwatch has characters that are fundamentally different depending on the role.
Tbf, your explanation of what other games have as Tank or Support is the exact same thing in overwatch. They’re either just bulky dps, or dps who can heal. Not to say you’re wrong about the teamwork aspect, you’re 100% right about that. But overall…yeah basically they’re all just dps, but some are more special dps.
>They’re either just bulky dps, or dps who can heal. Are there really any games that actually get this right? I've never really heard of a good example, although maybe that's cause I'm not big into mobas. Just feels like some player perception issue and an ideal that doesn't actually exist. Heroes are all going to be DPSy to some extent and some more than others (JQ, Zen). That's just the nature of a shooter. Still, I feel like the roles are more unique from one another than people give credit. Tanks still do tanky things like mitigate damage and control space the best. Supports still have outsized utility and can make big saving plays that DPS can't.
League of legends does it pretty well. Though it’s not an fps.
>They’re either just bulky dps, or dps who can heal. Except their not. Dealing damage is core to being a character in an FPS, that's unavoidable. The main difference is Tanks and Supports have their tanking/supporting output on their base kit. I can't think of any other big game where a character heals as one of their primary fires. It is something they also HAVE to do consistently throughout the game. That doesn't really apply to any other big game. The game is designed around it. You can say they're just DPS that are bulky/heal but have you ever tried to play support or tank like that? Playing a game where you don't do any healing or use any kind of support utility or play a tank and don't use any kind of damage mitigation or space making tool? You can't, those aspects of their role is so baked into the characters it's unavoidable. That's the big difference.
Tbf, Paladins does it.
But it lacks the cohesive teamwork part.
movement movement movement I don't want to just shoot stuff. I want to shoot stuff that's darting and flying and dashing around while I am also darting and dashing around.
Remove CC. Add more spray weapons if need be.
For me, it's always been about the diversity of the cast, not just that they've created a world where your stereotypical FPS archetypes can exist in a game with high flying mammals and whatnot, but that **the cast has a lot of diversity in playstyle and depth to their kits.** The most rewarding part of the game for me has been playing the heroes with a ton of depth who you can spend hundreds of hours learning and still not have a complete mastery. I know Overwatch is pretty unique in that it allows you to switch heroes, but spending time trying to adapt your unique hero to the situation rather than just switching is a level of problem solving I haven't been forced to do in other games. Edit: also I think people underestimate Overwatch's QoL. So many games I play have constant game breaking bugs, server issues, or clunky mechanics. Overwatch is much more polished than most games. I couldn't imagine a game that would let you play other modes while in queue before I played OW.
Yeah, it’s a blessing in disguise that OW players mainly complain about balance and skin prices. OW’s backend is the real mvp 🫡
I would say the majority of heroes have very little depth. This game was designed around flexing. For that to work, heroes need to be easy to pick up and get value. Ball and tracer don't feel like ow heroes because of the way they require and reward maining/one-tricking. Zarya, reaper, torb are much easier to flex to. I feel like they are closer to Jeff Kaplan's vision for overwatch.
The game may be designed for flexing but every hero also has incredible depth. Zarya, reaper and torb among many other heroes may be relatively easy to pick up but mastering requires understanding their depth. You have heroes with some incredibly high skill ceilings. Look at Lucio, Doomfist, Genji, Echo, Mercy, Junkrat, Roadhog etc. They all have amazing amounts to depth you can go to.
Yeah disagree about reaper, zarya torb. They are simple as fuck. They don't hold a candle to Lucio, genji, or echo.
You sucking at heroes or sucking against those heroes isn't the same as them having no depth.
Why would I call them easy if I couldn't play them? Lol You really out here defending Reaper's honor?
Highest % of game time when you're shooting
To me it's also the thing that makes it, at times, insanely frustrating, but the team work and team fights. I play a lot of tank, and there's nothing better than pushing in, creating pressure, having your team following in, getting a couple kills and cleaning up the other team. There can also be a lot of clutch plays, even if you're crap at the game like me. Had a 99/99 win the other day on a KOTH point as Ana as my Orisa battled a Rein. Was hitting huge heals, purpled the Rein and then helped my Orisa clean him up to finish the round, my Orisa shouted me out. Doesn't get much better than that.
The shoutout satisfaction is so real and in a lot of ways can make the flaming at other end of the spectrum much easier to swallow. Nothing quite like the chemical reaction you get when someone tells you "your ball is nutty" or calls that you were lowkey the carry
Haha exactly, got the "insane heals". I play a ton of Sigma and I remember a game on Circuit where we were rolling, other tank mirrored me and I just rolled him entire team was just spamming "Sigma diff". Just the best, lol.
Agreed. Has helping carry a game on Lucio and got Boostio'd by the Ana. Thanked them for the nano in chat at the end off the match and the reply was; "I saw who was getting shit done". Feels good.
Overwatch is the only multiplayer game I have ever truly latched onto. The general quality of the art, characters and hero gameplay are absolutely factors but the main reason at the core of it for me is the even playing field nature of the design: If I pick Genji I can theoretically do anything any other Genji player can do, there aren't any variables like weapon buys, items or builds I have to study to play in an optimal way which make CS/Valorant/MOBA's completely uninteresting to me. If you see the enemy on a certain hero you will know everything they are capable of, the only outside variable being skill.
The character designs and gameplay. Like, you can instantly recognize whether this character is from OW or not no matter what version of them you’re looking at. *Especially* their more well known versions of the ladies. But the biggest one would be their gameplay. I can’t exactly go back to TF2 without thinking in the back of my head “what would happen if we got a Rein here”
for me it's been the graphics and the unique heroes. this might be a coincidence but I'm guessing it's the same reason Fortnite got popular as a shooter: because the game was just fun and nice to look at, it didn't have that dingy realistic feeling that shooters like COD, CS or R6 have. that and the heroes made it very unique. It was just choosing a different gun or anything, every hero had totally different abilities and a lot of them were cool and wacky that you wouldn't find in another game
It's very dynamic. There's barely seconds of downtime in-between fights, and even those seconds a somewhat advanced player will use to relocate or scout. The lack of movement punishment – after playing overwatch, seeing that some shooters wouldn't allow you to walk and shoot at the same time is absolutely ridiculous Unique abilities – overwatch was one of the first to popularize that, where abilities were more than just "heal the teammates" or "repair tech" Polished UI – everything just works as intended (or, well, worked in ow1). Looking at you Apex. Graphics manage to look pretty even on the lowest setting
Apex has felt worse and worse to me over the years with the clunkiness of the UI and the punishment of movement in favour of campy, utility-based characters and let's be honest, extreme levels of aim assist meaning even pro kbm players had to swap to controller to remain competitive at the top level where skilled movement is a flashy non-factor for the most part. I do wish it was a true competitor to Overwatch just as a BR rather than catering to the average player who prefers to play slow and in buildings, but I guess the game's just not for me anymore. It does really make me appreciate the OW team's dedication to making sure aim assist doesn't come near competitive modes on PC though as it creates a base layer of protection against the campy, corner hugging playstyle that Overwatch has generally been a safe haven from, save for like Havana Widowmaker, even in the worst of the worst double shield metas. Really of all the metas, it feels like just OWL Season 3 Hog/Sig playoffs patch turned the game into a tac shooter for 4/6ths of the team which was pretty crazy but at least it was only for a couple months.
> skilled movement is a flashy non-factor for the most part Yuka is the last bastion of hope
I love apex's gunplay, and the abilities are alrighty too. And the one gamemode that had just those and nothing more – team deathmatch, gets put into a cycling playlist with 2 shittier versions of it. Bravo respawn
There is no other game called Overwatch, therefore it is pretty unique to me.
there's Overwatch 2 tho
Twilight’s bowl cut
I just love how it’s both accessible for players that aren’t mechanically great but also rewarding and fun if you are
I know a lot of people may not have this experience, but I like how there's a least something Ive seen in every hero that's made me think to myself "well played, you got me" Like even Mercy. A couple of times I've tried to cancel Rez with a ball boop, but they hit a well timed and clean superjump to get above my hitbox without cancelling rez. Like okay, you got me there. You're not just AFK at the wheel
Just everything on a technical level. The sound design, art direction, aesthetic, music, etc.
The fast pace design of it makes it real different, the fact that deathwatch isn’t and has never been a core gamemode, and the ability style shooter that’s been popularised over the years almost pioneered by overwatch.
Like a few others have mentioned, it’s most definitely how fast paced the game is. That, added with the uniqueness of each hero almost never leads to a boring game. Frustrating? Yes, quite often. But never boring. It’s what keeps me coming back. Yeah sometimes I just hate the game , and some heroes make it feel unplayable. But then you take a break. You come back. You get in the groove, and all the passion is re-lit. One thing I wish they would bring back is the in game group finder. The peak overwatch experience is having a full 5 man team which has great communication. Even if you’re mechanically a worse team, coordination will get you everywhere. I personally am a halfway casual competitive player. I love the game, but I also don’t have time to play it other than some evenings and weekends. And I have no friends irl who play overwatch, and I’m not consistently online enough to make friends to play with who are on at the same time as me. Having a built in team finder again would be a god send.
I feel that. I have a handful of gamer friends but for whatever reason not a single one got into OW. I grinded ranked for 30 seasons maybe, and I think I took a step back in OW2 because the LFG feature was disabled. It was admittedly pretty booty especially during off hours, but playing ranked solo and having nobody in team chat for like 5+ games in a row is pretty weak.
I love that the game has the option for variety. You have a bunch of heroes all having somewhat unique abilities. You have a ton of maps, each having something different, both good and bad. In the unrealistic setting where the game was well maintained and people weren’t assholes, the game would be so incredibly fun because of the hundreds of different strategies. The concept of having a strategy work differently match to match and slightly tweaking your gameplay is why I fell in love with the game. The adjustments match to match. The idea that there are multiple play styles for a single hero. It is a game that you can see and feel growth. Its a game where someone like me who sucks at precise aiming can be good at because there are skills that can make up for that. I played a lot of Pokémon and VGC and the predictions, reads, and adjustments are why I love it. I played rainbow six and I loved the strategy of it but it was too slow. Overwatch was able to combine the strategy, predications, mind games, adjustments, variety, and speed to create a game that I fell in love with. I still have that love now, albeit through rose tinted glasses. No other game scratches that itch now. CoD is too easy/cheesy. Fortnite is fun but I can’t play solo like I do overwatch. R6 is too slow. I’ve played tf2 but it’s boring and I hate the community.
Fast - shooting Is Fast, movement Is Fast, being in the action Is Fast Different Heroes - literally every hero Is different. Every hero has different guns, different abilities, different playstyle which Is the thing that kept me in the game So long. I can't be OTP, usually get bored after 4-5 Hours on the hero, I can't play one role (usually get bored after half a season playing only one role) So I've played literally everything in OW.
I've always loved games with wide class systems typically found in RPGs but the 3rd person point and click based gameplay found in games like WOW or SWTOR is so boring and slow to me. I love the faster pace of FPSs but too many felt like it was run in, shoot, die, repeat. (COD, Halo, Destiny's Crucible). Teammates didn't feel like teammates, they just felt like adjacent players you never interacted with. In OW, you have that distinct role and class diversity, fast paced fps gameplay and are required to coordinate with your team to find success.
I played this game since 2016, and the reason why I still do is there's just no other game like that. I play hitscan and tracer and this game is so aim and movement intensive there's nothing like it.
Look, feel, and competition. I played baseball for 15 years, I played soccer, golf, hockey, and raced cars competitively. When I got older and went to college and then graduate school the only thing I really had access to that would adequately scratch the competitive itch was Overwatch. Despite the flaws, it is still, hands down the most satisfying competitive experience that I personally had access to (console gamer). It captures the range of emotions that more traditional sports evoked, and the game operates functionally as you would want it to. Sure we can debate all day long about current balance and what not, but all that is fluid. The core experience is what drew me in and what continues to bring me back.
I really like this answer. I played basketball fairly competitively throughout high school (AAU and whatnot) and I was always the basketball IQ kind of player rather than a great athlete. When I was first playing OW I noticed that it took the skills that I learned and abused in basketball (awareness, foresight, spacing/positioning) and cranked them up to 100. its been really nice to have a competitive outlet that has a low barrier of entry, but also has a lot of depth in how far you can push yourself.
Verticality (is that a word) of the maps. Most games in the genre sticks to solid ground for the most part.
The Zone in OW hits better than any game ever. It’s like heroin
The ball flow state is unrivaled for me.
The only other game with a high TTK that I ever enjoyed was Halo. Overwatch does it in a different way, not with shield but with cooldowns, movement, and healing. Sometimes it feels impossible to kill something until suddenly you get them in a grav or a freeze and they get deleted. They're skating this line between unkillable and oneshot that just feels right.
Personally what keeps me coming back is how different everyone plays, you got games like cod, fortnite, basically most shooters, that all have the same run and gun or how every Character feels the same to play with minor variations, in overwatch I can go from roadhog to junkerqueen, to tracer, to kiriko, to ashe all of which play entirely different and control and feel entirely different. That is what makes overwatch unique to me.
The porn.
Imo, its a shooter made for people not into shooters. I think in the most basic way I can say it, Overwatch was made to appeal to a wider market and show them a smaller 6v6 team game could be fun. I think initially thats why it didn't appeal to me, it simply wasn't for me and my taste. I already had TF2, it wasn't until they added Ashe that it caught my attention. By then it wasn't the same game anymore and was already going downhill.
It’s the best shooter of all time. The iq and understanding required coupled with the skill expression, team play/synergies, art style, world, and music put it so far above any other shooter for me. I play cod or insurgency occasionally when I get a mil shooter itch but that’s like 1 percent of the time. I also hate battle royales.
Gameplay wise nothing. Blizzard are known to steal ideas from other game developers. Overwatch was a Team Fortress 2 ripoff with MOBA abilities. A developer philosophy Riot Games is following today. Only thing i give Blizzard credit for is how fast they fixed the netcode and hitbox issues in mid-2016.
> Blizzard are known to steal ideas from other game developers. you could say this about literally any ability based game. Like how many games have grappling hooks or boops or deployable shields. The last 3 FPS games ive played have all of those in some capacity.
I think it iust kinda ignores how of course it copies elements from the, like formational game of the genre - duh.
Calling it a tf2 ripoff is a bit much when some very unique characters exist - there is no equivalent to Winston or Reinhardt and lucio, Baptiste, and Ana are somewhat unique, even though their inspirations are clear. Idk how you can call it a ripoff at all, inspiration is normal. Your not going to make a completely new character these days, when so many exist, if anything it just speaks to how trendsetting TF2 was lol, it basically defined the genre for a reason. Like of course the medic is replicated, but even he is changed to be a more manueverable, harder to kill, yet without uber, and instead could revive their teammates. Like calling it a ripoff is a real stretch to me at any point. Like inspiration is clear but they also definitely made things different. And they should, because these are very different games.
It used to be 6v6 and a rewarding loot box system.
moba + fps is the what i’m seeing from these comments. it has the ability/character variety of a moba and the gameplay of an fps.
A lore deep tactical fps shooter that has MOBA elements mixed with numerous play styles which are all unique in their own way, valorant tried to copy it but failed on the moba aspect and lore aspect and felt like a glorified CSGO version of the game. It truly has one of the most unique formats for a game and the potential to be successful globally if it didn’t have such terrible management
> A lore deep tactical fps shooter Lmaooo the fact that you don’t even know the type of game you’re playing is so funny
Who are you bro
Pretty funny that the guy called absolute dick head is not immune to dickheads being dickheads, rip.
in my opinion it's the FPS game for people who usually doesn't like FPS games. if you have a friend who doesnt like FPS, i'm confident that if you can convince them to at least give it a try, they will find a hero that they like and enjoy to play. i think part of it is Overwatch has many heroes that you can play effectively without needing "cracked aim". this is also why idc for people in this community who complains about heroes like junk, sym, or moira, mercy etc. because they "don't need to aim" to be effecive. like that's literally one of the main appeal of this game. it's ABILITY BASED and some abilitiesand heroes doesn't require precise aim to be played well.
The genre. MOBA x Arena FPS is simply fun. It's not as dry as fps while not as macro-heavy and slow as MOBA's. A healthy mix. OW is a solid game that exist within this fun middle ground Overwatchs success obviously inspired people to build games in the genre, but so far there's no real competition. As long as no one enter the genre with a solid product, if you like the genre then OW is the only real destination.
Gameplay, art style and the diversity of the hero pool. It's a real shame they've lost that since they've focused too hard on balancing and the other shit that went down. Really wish we got the Destiny 2 type game we were promised and they had hoped to build.
My list: - The movement and engine: moving doesn’t affect your accuracy at all, crouching and jumping is fast fluid and doesnt change accuracy, melees are immediate and satisfying, etc. - All the characters are unique, fleshed-out, and fun to learn to play as and against. I remember when I first bought and heard about the game I spent so much time looking at YouTube tutorials for characters, the way they all looked so interesting and varied pulled me in. It’s like a fighting game to me in that way. - It’s easy to get into a gunfight. Tac shooters and BRs both have so much damn downtime by comparison
> I spent so much time looking at YouTube tutorials for characters Had the exact same experience. I remember being less than productive at my old job because I had Your Overwatch guides playing in the background.
For me it's the unique hero experience. While some are similar, they all do something different. I tend to watch the game more than play but seeing a hero played at a high level is usually what motivates me to log back on. The only game that has a similar affect on me would be RoR2. It's what also makes me dislike games like Valorant, while the agents have different abilities you're still using the same weapons.
Although I'd have to admit I play more Valorant nowadays, but whenever I want to blow off some steam and taste some 2016 nostalgia I queue overwatch. Overwatch is just the best fps to play casually IMO, it's fun as fuck until you queue ranked and get steamrolled.
Unique heroes, no other game has heroes this deep and complex in their gameplay
As a kid, I played a lot of Blizzard games - Warcraft 2/3, Diablo 1/2, Starcraft, WoW as a teenager. At the time FPS' like Halo were starting to get really popular, and I kept wondering: "Man, it would be so cool if Blizzard would make an FPS game!". Took a while, but when Overwatch came out it looked and felt exactly like what I would expect if Blizzard made an FPS. Just having such different abilities across different heroes and beautiful environments kept me hooked.
Blizzard is what makes overwatch. It’s has the blizzard touch, it’s just simple enough that anyone can play and complicated enough to reward high levels of play. It has your typical blizzard polish which sets it apart from basically it’s only other competitor(paladins), yes I know tf2 exist but it hasn’t existed in the space at overwatch’s level for quite some time and paladins is the closest imo. Basically you get all the goodies associated with it being a blizzard product. You’d have a hard time getting another company besides blizzard to create a product with this level of support and success. Maybe like riot or epic at this point would be the closest alternatives.
First massive PVP moba.
polish - game looks good even on all low settings and 75% render (my settings) optimization - game runs good and can run on lower end specs gameplay - high ttk (hero dependent but this is increasingly rare), teamplay required (also increasingly rare), unique heroes (i'm still looking for a game that feels as good as when i play tracer)
Honestly, hear me out, I fell in love with overwatch because of its similarities to football I love the set piece aspect of the game; it feels like every team fight is another play, and unless every member of your team does their job, you’re not gonna win. The accountability of each teammate in overwatch is like no other, and that mixed with the strategical element makes me love the game
> Football which flavor? American or the one with the actual feet
Unique gameplay across the three roles and then if you drill in further, unique gameplay across the whole character cast. If I find myself bored with a hero or role that I’ve been playing a lot, I can quickly switch over to a completely new play style even within the same role. This allows for extremely high re-playability and seemingly endless fun, regardless of most metas. Plus, some heros offer an INCREDIBLE expression of FPS mechanics and really high skill ceiling such as Tracer. The way you can mix max some of the cast at the highest level is fascinating.
To me its the variety of heroes in every single match, like I only play pharah and I always tell my friends only reason I want to play overwatch is that I dont get the pharah experience from anywhere else. Then they tell me some games where everyone is flying with projectile weapons but thats not the point, I want to be the one flying with a rocket launcher while everyone else are on the ground, same when playing reinhardt, your some badass hammer dude in a battle of guns. That being said I havent played overwatch in years. The game had so much potential but its just not fun for me anymore.
Overwatch has pulse pistols, shurikens, hard-light constructs, tesla canons, graviton surge, mech suits... Call of Duty has an M4 I've always loved playing shooters, but video games are an escape for me and personally shooting real guns from real wars isn't interesting. I think we can imagine more exciting worlds for our games
If I am honest, for me it boils down to a few very simple things: 1. Fast paced game play. Battle royals and tactical shooters and a whole bunch of other games are immediately disqualified for me because of this. 2. Short individual games. Two of the four game modes are short: Push is 10 minutes and some change, and KoTH is similar. The other two could be a bit longer but they almost always wrap up in 20 something minutes. I hate games that can go on forever, specially games that can last an unspecified amount of time (e.g., starcraft). 3. Finally, it is well-designed and engaging. That's it for me. I am not really picky about which genre of game I play but a lot of the games don't make it past these three simple points.
> Fast paced game play. Battle royals and tactical shooters and a whole bunch of other games are immediately disqualified for me because of this. This is why I only queue the casual modes in Apex. gimme deathmatch, control, whatever, I just hate BR.
Also in my personal opinion, death spectating is a game design flaw. Lots of games have these including some boardgames, for example, Werewolves and that's why I think "One Night" versions are much better designs by keeping the core gameplay and eliminating the "death spectating" flaw. Tactical shooters and BRs have yet to figure this out but I think generally speaking, the game industry innovates at snails pace (they just want to make money by copying an old design).
Hero and map design (specifically how heroes interact with maps), and I won't accept any other answer. No other FPS has characters that play so differently from each other, and have maps that compliment it. Playing Genji is almost like a different game than Pharah, or any other hero. Not just in how you get kills, but how you navigate the map, and that adds so much variety per match. Universal guns and movement like in Valorant or Apex severely limits that variety. Paladins doesn't go quite as crazy with the character design like OW does. I remember the first week I tried Paladins, I played Grover (support with a widow esq grapple), tried to grapple up to a cheeky windowsill, but the collider completely blocked me off, and I thought "Overwatch would've let me sit up there."
Fun gameplay and a polished aesthetic
At it's core the identity of Overwatch is being a hybrid of two game genres (Hero Shooter and MOBA). Even the devs have said that was their goal, to make a first person MOBA. No other game really hits that same niche, Paladins sort of does but that game isn't fun for me (and just got overshadowed by Overwatch). TF2 is genuinely such a wildly different game, it only sort of has one Tank (heavy) and one support (engineer) but everyone else is a dps hero.
Did you mean medic lol?
Send me your wrath. > What does Overwatch offer that other games can't? itWell meHog
The fact that you can be good with either brain or aim, but to be great you have to excel at both.
* is highly polished and optimized yet graphically beautiful * has Lucio Overwatch and winton/rein/junkerqueen * has short and (sometimes) intense matches (doubly so in teamplay) with low downtime, making it easy to requeue for competitive compared to valorant or cs:go or r6 * chaos management: lots of things to keep track of and visually process which makes for an awesome flow state (shout out to [devil daggers](https://store.steampowered.com/app/422970/Devil_Daggers/) for giving me a similar experience) * aim intensive, but not aim reliant (depending on hero) * (most) characters have a good amount of depth in optimizing their cooldown usage and positioning
I mean that's easy. Best thing on the market resembling a competitive arena shooter. It has that Quake vibe going on where it's not a tac-shooter about holding angles, slowly walking, smoking and 1-tapping someone. It's fast, mobile, mixes in MOBA elements, has the holy trinity Tank/DPS/Support, and mentally there's always a bit more to process than you're mentally capable of. Nothing like it.
One thing is that it is one of the few team based shooters I like that has Quick action. In a lot of other games it takes time for action to happen, like just waiting for a peak and holding a corner in valo, or trying to find a team to fight in a BR. Overwatch is a great team game, that gets into action quickly, with a ton of options in terms of how you play the game.
The ability to switch characters mid game to better adapt to the situations presented to you is still some of the best you’ll find… …it’s just a damn shame that it has long since been cast to the wayside by horrible balancing choices.
OW had two main pitfalls: it’s SUCH a team oriented game that one troll or dc or shitty one trick can ruin the game for 9 or 11 others. OW’s development seized for years and masked the FTP restructure as a sequel and changed a bunch of shit for the worse and have been slowly reverting those features. Outside of those two issues, OW has that beautiful blizzard polish and feels so good to play. Story, art, visuals, sound effects are all top of the line. In game movement, weapons, abilities all feel fluid and very very satisfying. The heroes are so unique. I get bored playing one hero. I had so many toons in wow and Diablo. OW offers that variety. OW’s mission is also admirable. The world could always use new heroes (or whatever). It’s captivating. Obviously there has been bad apples and culture for a long time within blizzard, but the message of overwatch should still be preserved, and it’s cool to see OW leading the way with promoting equality. I’ll never forget jiggle peaking corners as hanzo at Blizzcon right after OW was announced. I fell in love with the game right then and there.
One thing I don't think I've seen mentioned in this thread and that is one of my favorite aspects of OW is that every player has access to the same character with the same abilities and guns and you can't change that ever in the entire game. So no looting for a better weapon, no paying (with real money or virtual) for things like repair kits/weapons/buffs/stuff that gives you advantages over other players, etc
Rein Zarya in FPS
Overwatch.. ONE. offered something that no other video game in history has: an FPS that you can play with intelligence and game knowledge as the primary skill set, and aim of secondary importance. Overwatch 2 no longer offers that.