Why is Overwatch doing so poorly compared to other games like Valorant? At least professional player Seagull sees some reasons for that.
Overwatch is not doing well at the moment. Although the Summer Games are currently buffering a dry spell of content, not much is happening in Blizzard’s hero shooter. The focused work on the sequel Overwatch 2 is to blame. However, that’s slowly but surely killing the community, according to former pro Seagull.
Who is speaking? Brandon Larned, known in the community as Seagull, was long regarded as one of the best Overwatch players in the world. He has been a part of the game’s league for a long time and has achieved some success. Now he is commenting on the current state of the game and has little good to say about it.
What is the problem? The announcement of Overwatch 2 was made nearly 9 months ago. However, after initial information around BlizzCon 2019, things went quiet again. There are virtually no updates on the upcoming game. Moreover, the development of new content for the still ongoing game seems to have stalled.
Although there are occasionally new heroes, like the recent Echo, the maintenance of the game is rather lacking. Apart from a few new skins in seasonal events and minor balance changes, the flow of content seems to have dried up.
Other games are doing better: Seagull particularly emphasizes the drastic differences when comparing Overwatch with other games. He says:
It’s a joke that other games release content on a seasonal basis while we sit here thinking “We’re only getting three heroes this year.” Valorant, on the other hand, is like “Yeah, we have a new hero every two months, we have seasons, we have a battle pass, we have quests and story.” Where are we with Overwatch? (…)
We know it can be good. They just need to bring more content. Introduce a seasonal model or regular expansions. By now, even a model like in Call of Duty would be better than what we currently have. You would get more content.
Overwatch 2 is a big unknown: Additionally, Overwatch 2 remains largely in the dark. We know that the game will focus heavily on PvE and have a substantial campaign, but many details are still unknown. Particularly, PvP fans are worried that the PvE aspect will push the current centerpiece of the game – namely the PvP matches – further into the background. Seagull comments on this:
The developer team has already shown that they are sacrificing some content to create Overwatch 2. Overwatch 2, and most of its development time, will likely flow into the PvE side of the game. Why wouldn’t that continue to be the case in the future? (…)
It has already been tough in Overwatch 1, so why should I expect it to improve in any meaningful way with Overwatch 2 now that they are implementing a complete PvE mode? I have complete faith in Blizzard that they will deliver a PvE product … but I’m curious about the future of the PvP part of the game. Will that still be a priority? Because I doubt it.
But how do you see it all? Can you live with the dry spell if Overwatch 2 turns out to be really good? Or should Blizzard have organized this better? The two Overwatch parts will actually merge …
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