Overwatch Archives Skins Missed Opportunity
Gargoyle was a strong off-tank for the Contenders team Armament and was brought up to the Florida Mayhem in the latter half of the 2019 season. He played well on Roadhog during that time but he is known for being a good off-tank in the 3-3 meta which raises questions about his ability to play in 2-2-2 comps at a similar high level. He is more than capable of it, though and D.Va play is important in the league at the moment. If Gargoyle steps up, the Florida Mayhem may surprise some people this sea
Edgerunners is a new anime set in the world of Cyberpunk 2077, the highly-anticipated game that had an infamously rocky and controversial launch. It was losing players and support fast. But this new anime has sparked new life into the game, as it now boasts over a million players a day, and the general conversations around Cyberpunk 2077 have shifted in tone - people seem to be swinging back around to enjoy this gem in the rou
I know some other games do this. Valorant and League of Legends are both successful, and both require heroes (agents and champions, respectively) to be unlocked from the off. But crucially the original Overwatch did not, and that was a major part of the appeal. This unlocking system was at one time commonplace in the fighting genre, until studios realised this was no fun and served no purpose. Overwatch 2 seems to be deliberately making the game less fun in the hopes of ensnaring players to keep playing until their favourite hero is let out of jail. A more confident hand would give you the heroes from the start and trust that it’s good enough for you to stick aro
I’ve been excited for Overwatch 2 for a very long time. Overwatch is one of my favourite shooters in history, as well as being my absolute favourite online game ever made. I’ve been excited about the potential a story with some of my most beloved characters in video games could have for donkey’s years, as well as the opportunity to run PvE gauntlets with my friends and all of the other mystery inherently surrounding Blizzard’s highly anticipated sequel to one of the most iconic hero shooters around town. 5v5, though? Nah. I’ll stick to current Overwatch for competitive, tha
Tanks, meanwhile, are divided into main tank and off-tank categories. The former includes Reinhardt, Orisa, Winston, and sort of Sigma, whereas the latter subset is occupied by Zarya, Roadhog, D.Va, and sort of Wrecking Ball. The "sort of" clauses here are because the more recent tanks added to Overwatch 2 patch notes|https://overwatch2Fans.Com/’s roster are mostly aligned with one category, but adopt minor inspiration from the other one. Ultimately, though, the main distinction has to do with whether or not the tank has a shield, which directly affects their ability to function as a main tank, which in turn refers to how effectively they can use their status as a team anchor to control engagem
Overwatch 2 is right around the corner, and even though it shouldn’t really exist , there’s an air of excitement around its launch. The first Overwatch completely reinvented the online shooter space when it launched in 2016, and deserves to be spoken about in the same breath as gaming’s all time greats. It was fresh, fast, and fiendishly compelling, but the very fact a sequel exists highlights how much Overwatch has fallen off the pace. The latest revelation about the hero roster only underscores this furt
That’s an issue for another day though. Today, I want to focus on the Archives skins, particularly those of our queer characters, Soldier 76 and Tracer. The Archives event is running until April 27, and brings eight new skins to the game, each designed around a given character’s cultural history. Both Soldier 76 and Tracer are included in the event, but it’s extremely telling that neither of their cultural histories includes any reference to queerness. Soldier 76 is becoming Soldier 1776 which, I admit, is a good pun. The American soldier is donning the jacket of the Revolutionaries, these days probably best known from the musical Hamil
While the main tank functions in this way, the off-tank is doing every tanky job the main tank doesn’t have time for - protecting support heroes, supplementing damage heroes, and tending to any objective that requires a big, chunky health bar. From Roadhog’s hook to Zarya’s bubbles, each off-tank has some degree of authority over space manipulation, too, which allows them to use the main tank’s anchorage to support more active area control. They’re an essential part of fluid, facile, and fantastic Overwatch - and guess what? They’ll be the first on the chopping block when it moves to
Despite my praise for the designs, Overwatch is not a game with in-depth characters - it’s all skin deep. Any attempt to flesh them out usually comes through fine print in the lore, promo reels, or external material like comic books. I understand why fans want these great designs to be built upon further, and I appreciate that a hero shooter all about utilising powers and fast PvP play is not the ideal genre for deep, interconnected stories. Overwatch has two queer characters, which is more than most triple-A games, but it’s hard to give it too much credit when their queerness has been so completely downplayed. It’s often lauded for its diversity - it even once had a GLAAD nomination - but that fact is its two queer characters are white, cis, and straight passing, while there are more playable animals and playable robots than there are playable Black women. That’s not too much of a stretch though, given that there are zero Black women in Overwatch’s heaving roster right now - Sojourn will join in Overwatch 2, but that feels too late for a game with playable 32 charact