The long awaited Overwatch 2 was finally released for Beta-testing on 26.04.2022. The second Part to the now 6-year-old FPS was first announced on November 1st 2019 at the BlizzCon 2019. The official release date hasn’t been set yet, but Blizzard has estimated it to be in 2023 at the earliest.
In May 2019, J. Allen Brack, former president of Blizzard Entertainment, hinted at the development of a new game, which was finally announced to be Overwatch 2, at the BlizzCon 2019 held on November 1st.
It has been three long years with repeated announcements, but the release date is being pushed back still. Game director Aaron Keller has released the game for Beta-testing, so the release date is growing closer after originally being somewhat of a myth, as people didn‘t quite believe the Game would actually be released.
Overwatch is set 60 years into the future. Humanity has just passed its Golden Age and is struggling to rebuild after the great Omnic-Crisis. The prejudice towards the Omnics (robots with artificial intelligence) is tearing society apart and two terrorist factions are rising.
Talon, with their wish to purge all Omnics under the guise of wanting to prevent another Omnic-Crisis, and the Null Sector, who are trying to create a second uprising of evil robots to destroy humanity.
Overwatch is an international group of heroes, who were disbanded after internal struggle, that is now secretly rebuilding their ranks to fight for justice and to protect humanity.
Play as a German knight crusader or a Brazilian skater DJ, conquer the skies as an Swiss Doctor or go on a rampage as a scientist that is also a monkey.
The wide selection of playable Hero characters, each with unique abilities, is one of the highlights the game has taken from its Prequel. The character designs were reworked, but no heroes were removed. Quite the opposite, Overwatch 2 has already delivered on 1 new hero, with many more to come.
Meet Sojourn, the new hero of Overwatch. She is a mid-range damage hero equipped with a Railgun. As a former Overwatch Captain she is fighting against the rising Null Sector with her energy guns.
With various game-modes, everyone is bound to have fun. Whether you play versus and battle it out with other people or if you do a story quest and level up your heroes is completely up to you.
The biggest difference to the original battle mode is the changed team size. Instead of 2 tanks on each side the developers have implemented 5 man teams. One tank, two damage heroes and 2 support heroes make up the full size.
You have the choice between role-bound battles, meaning you have to pick a role like support or tank and can only play heroes from that category, and battles without role-selection, where you have the choice from the entire pool of heroes.
There are different game modes to play with your team, like Attack, where one team is attacking an objective and has to push back the defenders far enough to take the point, before attacking the second objective.
The mode King of the Hill has two teams battle for one centre objective point and gaining percent during the time of possession. The team that reaches 100% first wins the round. In these maps the team winning two rounds takes the crown.
A new gamemode in Overwatch 2 is “Push”, in which both teams attempt to control a robot on a symmetrical map that pushes a payload in the direction of the enemy team‘s base.
Story quests have been added to the game, where 4 players face off against evil robots that destroy the cities and attack humans all over the world. The map types reach from the Chinese Lijiang Tower all the way to the European maps Eichenwalde and King‘s Row. The American map Route 66 is also a classic from the first Overwatch game.
The four new maps Midtown, Colosseo, New Queen Street and Circuit Royal will be joining the map pool. The gamemode Assault has been cancelled completely, meaning some maps from Overwatch will not be represented in Overwatch 2‘s story.
The fantasy FPS is a great start if you want to dive into the world of Overwatch for the first time, but also veterans are welcomed back warmly.
Trailer
It is very clear that the developers have put a lot of thought into the story surrounding Overwatch 2. A familiar face starts us off, as Lucio welcomes us back to the second part in the Overwatch saga.
The trailer combines examples of the gameplay with nice commentary from the hero‘s voice actors, making it feel like a recruitment video. They show off several of their playable heroes, including the new Sojourn, as well as the new gamemode.
Players of the first part of Overwatch will be happy to see familiar faces like Reaper, Reinhardt and Genji, while some might be more intrigued by the foreshadowed conflicts coming up in the story quests surrounding Zenyatta and Doomfist.
The latter used to be a damage hero in Overwatch, but the developers have decided to categorise him as a tank for Overwatch 2, already sparking discussion in the player base of Overwatch.
Furthermore the trailer also shows off the stunning mechanics of several heroes‘ ultimate abilities. Since every hero has their own special set of skills, the individual ultimates are also specific for each character.
Overwatch 2 has the additional options of leveling up your favourite heroes and unlocking more abilities to use in battle. This also enables players to customize which abilities to use for each hero, making the experience more individual for every players‘ preference.
The game was momentarily in jeopardy after the Blizzard scandal last year. After many of the male employees of the company were accused of sexual harassment and even the suicide of an anonymous female employee during a company retreat, several high-profile game directors decided to leave Blizzard. One of them being the game director for Overwatch 2, Chacko Sonny.
He left the company with Jeff Kaplan, the director of Overwatch, leaving the game unfinished. Aaron Keller, now new director of Overwatch, took over and is producing Overwatch under the new Microsoft ownership, making Xbox the main console for Overwatch 2.
Probably the best news for all fans of the already existing Overwatch game though, is the news that all skins and achievements made in Overwatch will remain in the players profile in Overwatch 2.
Additionally, the chance of crossplay has been announced by developers, meaning people from Overwatch 1 and 2 will be able to play in team-battles alongside each other.
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