On Playing Overwatch 2

Despite my boyfriend and I both being gamers (him more so than me), we actually don’t play much in common. He’s a Playstation player while I’ve been playing on PC for a good decade now. Ideally we both need something that has crossplay. So, early on, we decided to play Overwatch 2 together. It’s currently free and it’s got crossplay, so it seemed like a good idea.

Brain Pain

Now, long-time readers might know that I had a problem with Overwatch 1. It used to give me horrible headaches whenever I played for more than 20 minutes. I did enjoy what I saw in Overwatch 1, but I really just couldn’t play properly, so I left the game alone. Aabicus would occasionally give me a heads up on all things Overwatch-y, especially on the competitive scene, which did actually impress me, compared to other e-sports. But aside them that, I never got into Overwatch properly.

Fast forward a few years later, and Overwatch 1 is killed in order for Overwatch 2 to take over. The launch was very bumpy and there were massive server issues. Those all settled down a bit though. I didn’t start playing Overwatch 2 until much later, the early parts of 2023, when I started playing games with my friend.

To my surprise, after playing for definitely more than five minutes, I realized I was not getting a headache. I’m not sure how, but there was some setting that altered the UI, the thing that gave me headaches in the first place, and changed it so I wouldn’t get headaches.

Actually playable

Frankly, I was quite surprised. Not only could I play the game, but I could now also critique it, since there were some things that were quite annoying. Like having to unlock half the hero roster again. This annoyed me because I did actually own Overwatch 1 and I did have a handful of skins, but nope, those were all gone. Luckily, unlocking heroes simply required me to play games, and I do have most of the roster unlocked now. I don’t have the newer heroes, Rammatra and Kiriko, but they both can be unlocked as well, either via a season pass or via a hero challenge once the season is over.

Season Passes

Speaking of season passes, the season pass and the new store are both quite expensive. There’s hardly anything on the free season pass and it’s very hard to get new skins these days, unless you fork over some cash. You can still slowly earn credits and do dailies to unlock things for free, but it’s a far worse system compared to loot boxes. In fact, Overwatch 1’s loot box system was probably one of the fairest loot box systems around. That’s long gone now.

Back to gameplay

So anyway, back to actually playing the game, it does all feel different. The switch from 6 players to 5 per team isn’t too bad, but it is very much skewed towards tanks. Whoever has the best tank for the right situation dictates who wins matches, and the damage-based heroes can seem quite weak towards them. But still, the 6th player isn’t missed at all. It’s a hectic mess no matter what, and there can be a ton of flashing and too much going on, to the point that it’s overwhelming.

I however only play support, and most of my time is spent as Lucio. Support is, as always, underrepresented, and not many people willingly play it. Heck, to make more people play support, you get extra xp towards your season pass by playing support. Even with the first new hero, Kiriko, being a support, there’s still a lack of them available. Luckily, I’m always happy to play support, so we can get into matches more quickly.

Unfortunately, I do have a problem. My laptop doesn’t play well with Overwatch 2. I get a lot of lag and stutters, which can and have screwed me over a few times. But oh well, it’s just a game.