Overwatch: Tolles Spiel, miese Community – Unser Ersteindruck

Cortyn has recently been busy in the beta of Overwatch. But is the game any good? Read our first impressions here.

After the beta of Overwatch woke up from its winter sleep last week, we finally gained access to Blizzard’s hero shooter and were able to get a better impression. Over the past few days, there has been extensive shooting, blocking, hitting, and exploding – all the fun things you can experience in Overwatch. Always in more or less fair 6vs6 matches.

Is something great coming our way? Definitely. Is it perfect? Not at all.

The Entry – Incredibly Simple

If Blizzard excels at one thing, it’s designing game entrances so that players are thrown into the battle without much explanation. With just two clicks, you are in the queue, and with two more clicks, you’ve selected your hero and fight across the coherent battlefields – which feels good after just a few moments. At a glance, it’s clear how difficult the hero is to play and what their abilities do.

It’s a pity that some statements are quite vague, and specific damage numbers would be more helpful than terms like “very strong” or “powerful”. Adding to this is the annoying little detail that in the selection menu, chat is irritatingly placed above the description of the ultimate ability, but you can always check it in-game.

The Shooting – Faster than Expected

Blizzard always claimed that Overwatch would be played “slower” than other shooters, but I cannot confirm that. The action is fast and brutal, and there is rarely time to think. Whether I played McCree, Widowmaker, or Reaper, the camera is yanked back and forth to keep everything in sight. Only with Reinhardt is there a bit more calm – the German knight has a strong shield that lasts quite long, allowing time to plan the next steps.

Above all, the ability to choose another hero at any time adds more fun than I expected. This means both teams are constantly changing, and there are plenty of opportunities to overcome a seemingly unbeatable team with the right combo. The various maps and game modes are all fun, even if it basically always comes down to “Hold this point” – only sometimes you have to escort a moving point across the map.

Though balancing is occasionally absent, and there are often matches where you simply run into a wall of enemies, this is probably due to the fact that it’s a beta. Since these matches usually last less than 5 minutes, it’s more bearable than it may sound.

The Big Running

However, there are also some criticisms of the game. Personally, I find the breaks between the action too long. Standing in the spawn room for a minute at the beginning of each match is only exciting for the first three matches, and the dialogues between characters become tedious quite quickly.

On most maps, the run path from the spawn point to the real action is also quite long. Sure, the path is somewhat necessary to actually feel death as a “punishment” and to give the opposing team a chance to advance. However, with sluggish heroes, the path feels excruciatingly long. You’re really glad when a Symmetra has sneaked into the team (since she can create portals).

The Community – Last Resort: Close Your Ears and Eyes!

In reality, the community should play a rather subordinate role in the first impression of a game, but in a team shooter designed for cooperation and communication, I can’t get around it. In one word, my experiences can be summarized: Good grief! What has been rattled off in the last few days in terms of wild insults through voice and text chat would make even seasoned League of Legends players and frequent visitors to the Barrens channel blush with shame. Yes, emotions seem to boil over quickly in shooters. I quickly found myself forced to mute the sound in certain matches. This was certainly not beneficial to gameplay (which led to even more insults), but it was unbearable otherwise.

Of course, I might just have been unlucky in my matchmaking, but that significantly reduced my enjoyment of the game. I just really hope that the community of the finished game is different from what I have experienced so far. Otherwise, I will only be able to enjoy Overwatch with friends.

(Preliminary) Conclusion:

Overwatch is immensely fun. The characters all feel unique and interesting; no hero is like the other. The progression system is motivating but still feels a bit unrefined – especially with increasing levels, the rewards become so rare that they are frustrating when they take so long to arrive. Hopefully, this won’t just be an incentive to generate substantial revenue through the cash shop. The community is currently more toxic than a big city sewer, but that could still be due to the “excitement” of the beta.

To summarize, I am convinced that Overwatch will be one of the major shooter titles of the coming years. Everything fits incredibly well together – apart from a few minor flaws during the beta.