Overwatch 2: Season 6 Drops, and so do the Players
Overwatch 2 has seen more negative press than praise as the newest chapter of the Heroes we came to love launched, taking it’s predecessor Overwatch, to an early grave. Many fans of the franchise were looking forward to the continuation of the prior title with the promise of a long-awaited PVE mode that vowed to let players connect to their Heroes and explore the Overwatch lore in a whole new way with the introduction of “talent trees” and a Hero mode. However that promise never made it to reality.
From the announcement of scrapping the plans for the promised addition of PVE completely, some lost interest but on launch day, the remaining players of the critically acclaimed game logged in to the newest Overwatch title expecting all of the incredible things promoted prior to launch. However, what players got was not only essentially the first Overwatch (but look! now in 4k!), nothing promised was in the game aside from a downgrade of 6v6 to 5v5 which confused many in the competitive community due to its direct impact to team synergy. With OG Overwatch being completely turned off and removed, many disappointed players were left with only this version if they wanted to keep enjoying OW, or uninstall and never look back. It’s clear the newest Overwatch game is not doing as well as Activision Blizzard had hoped and it’s causing a ripple effect across the entire entity. Recently, news broke out across social media of layoffs of the Esports division confirmed by former employees. The next shoe to drop was the news of the Competitive Pro League, OWL, calling on a vote from current Pro League teams on an updated operating agreement that should they choose not to continue under the updated agreement, they would be offered a $6 million termination fee in return.
With the many disappointing moments that have plagued Overwatch 2’s launch and impression since, the launch of Season 6 promised to breathe new life into a game many players dubbed “Overwatch 1.5”. But was the largest update to Overwatch 2 enough to save its player base?
Overwatch 2’s Season 6, Invasion, dropped to servers on August 10, promising loads of new content, a new event, Hero and Game balances as well as the launch of the newest Support Hero, Illari.
The new sun-wielding Hero takes front and center in Season 6, utilizing the sun’s energy to bend it to her needs. Like the other Support Heroes, Illari’s Primary Fire uses her long range auto-charging Solar Rifle to deal damage to foes, while she can also heal her allies with her Secondary Fire. Additionally, she gains a powerful explosive solar ball of energy, Captive Sun, that slows enemies it hits before causing them to explode after taking significant damage as well as excellent mobility with Outburst, a leap movement built for when you need to push to save your team with Healing Pylons and get out to safety quickly.
The update introduces a new game mode, Flashpoint, that takes place on two massive brand new maps (New Junk City and Suravasa) and will be available in Arcade and Quick Play before coming to Competitive mode. Players are teamed up to face off in a Domination-style fight, similar in style to Halo Infinite’s Multiplayer mode, Total Control, where teams must battle for control points. The first team to capture 3 of the 5 points wins. By purchasing the Invasion Bundle, players also gained access to the New PVE Story Missions that shed more light on the next chapter of Overwatch lore, though even that fell short with complaints from users saying $15 for 1.5 hours of gameplay was less than acceptable from the Studio.
It’s been 24 hours since the drop of Season 6 and players are anything but happy. Reddit has been abuzz with bugs and issues, most notably an issue for Steam users who purchased the Invasion Bundle, only to find that not only did they not get the bundle, it’s not even showing that they purchased it in the first place. Activision Blizzard’s forums are on fire as dozens of posts and commentors are all sharing similar stories of their experience with the latest update.
Image Source: Steam
Overwatch 2’s reviews on Steam rose over 47,000, but not for the reasons you’d think. Previously, Overwatch 2 was sitting at a little over 200 Mixed Reviews, only to climb to an Overwhelmingly Negative rating by users where only 10% of the total reviews are positive. From criticism of the game’s Free-to-Play model being clogged full of predatory micro-transactions and overpriced skins (we’re talking upwards of $30+ per skin) to the promise of PVE (which was the driving point of the sequel) only to be “bait and switched” at zero-hour with a hefty monetization of Overwatch, the community has been letting their feelings be known. Avid players have been moving on from their beloved series, some going as far as to uninstall the game completely, citing the increase of cheating in ranked matches with no resolve to promised balancing that continues to fall short as to why they are abandoning the game.
Only time will tell if Activision Blizzard can bring the Overwatch 2 that was promised to reality before it’s too late, assuming there’s anything left to save.
For the complete breakdown of Season 6: Invasion, Click Here to head over to the Official Overwatch 2 site for details!
