Overwatch 2's greatest strength is that it's still Overwatch, but its biggest changes and invasive monetization system threaten to drain the joy out of it.
It's taken every single cell in my brain to try to determine why Overwatch 2 is a sequel.
Overwatch 2 is Overwatch 1 at 1.5X speed. It's the same game, but compressed. Two teams battle over an objective in beautifully rendered, near-future locations around the world. Each side has a tank hero, two damage dealers, and two support. It's an FPS in form, but matches unfold a little differently than they do in most other shooters. Both teams fight to occupy space on the map with all their various hero abilities and ultimates.
The DPS category continues the trend. They've been stripped of their crowd control abilities and had their kits sharpened for maximum damage output. Cassidy loses his Flashbang for countering fast flanker heroes for a sticky and homing Magnetic Grenade that simply deals a lot of damage when it goes off. Bastion can now move in his devastating turret form, previously the thing that made him most unique.
Instead of highlighting this strategic play as an alternative path to victory for players more interested in teamwork than mechanical acuity, Overwatch 2's relentless pacing causes these interactions to happen so frequently on both teams that their impact is nullified in uncoordinated play. There are far too many engagements where the time it takes to study your opponents and look for mistakes takes way longer than it does to use yours first and win via a surprise attack.
Purely for attaining cosmetic items, the battle pass and the challenges are a slight improvement on Overwatch 1's loot boxes. You have the ability to earn or buy skins, emotes, weapon charms, and more without having to worry about probability. But by locking heroes behind a months-long grind for Overwatch Coins , both systems start to chisel away parts of the core game that's already on the verge of being hollowed out.
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