(Warning: Explicit Language Ahead. Reader’s discretion advised)

Well, this week I was going to offer an analysis on mods and the role they serve in videogames, how they create new game genres and spur new developers. But a recent revelation has motivated me to do something else entirely. Blizzard. What the f***! You pieces of sh**! The gall you morons have to cancel the one thing; the ONE thing that gave justification to an Overwatch ‘sequel’. I’m being nice in calling it that, for the travesty that you threw at our feet is nothing more than an insult.

Overwatch 2, leading up to its disastrous launch, which I’ll get to later, promoted the following features: a transition to 5v5 format, the addition of several maps and a new mode, and finally the introduction of PvE modes that introduce new story elements and character abilities. The first feature turned out to be a wrong move in terms of game design. When Overwatch focused around 6v6 combat, the different classes of characters were evenly distributed between healer, tank and DPS with two players normally designated to each. When I played Overwatch, my favorite position to play in the game is something called the off tank. The off tank is a role that has damage mitigation but doesn’t act as the frontline. This included characters like D.va and Roadhog, whose abilities allowed them to cause distractions and chaos. This flexibility applied to the other classes. But with the transition to 5v5, Overwatch 2 lost that flexibility, the formation is more rigid. With only one tank now on each team, the goal for that player is to now protect the team and peel damage. In addition, Blizzard had the smart idea of removing most of the crowd control abilities from the game, thus making the job of the tank even harder and reducing the valid options. With the move to 5v5 Blizzard unintentionally cut the viable amount of tank characters in half. The rigidness of the gameplay and shift to 5v5 is seen as a reduction in quality of gameplay, at least through my eyes. The addition of new maps and modes is something expected from a new edition of Overwatch, especially because Blizzard, through Overwatch’s lifespan, added maps in many updates. The new mode, Push, added little variety as it is nothing more than a tug of war game mode, the main problem with it being if a team falls behind too quickly there is little chance for victory. As for the quality of the new maps added to Overwatch 2, they were average at best. The changes to the original maps were also a disappointment as some only changed the time of day the map took place in and nothing more. This leaves only the PvE elements to maintain player count and to keep gamers engaged. Plus it is truly the only new element being added to the game. But Blizzard announced that the PvE will be delayed until later on in Overwatch 2’s lifespan, so the game would have to survive on its old merits alone.

When the game was released late last year, the problems with Overwatch 2’s core gameplay would have to wait along with the gamers trying to get into the game through the never-ending queues. I downloaded the game to be ready for day 1 play only to be unable to get online. I managed a work around by loading into the EU servers only to be met with terrible framerates. Let me tell you a fun fact for those of you who never played Overwatch. If you windowed the application Overwatch would be sitting on the top left corner of the window. Overwatch 2 is the same only without the two. So this means that Overwatch 2 is the same application and should be able to use the same servers. So why in the f*** are all the servers jammed? You have been running the same f***ing game for six years up to that point, there should have been no problems. But enough people have commented on the terrible release enough.

Now past launch the Overwatch team leads the crippled game through the different seasons of updates with the promise that the PvE was coming. So, what brilliant solution did Blizzard come up with? Skins. Several uninteresting and multicolored skins. What those aren’t working? Sh**, uhm how about anime crossovers? Everyone likes One Punch Man right? No. Crap. Oh, let’s see, oh we know! New characters! How about a game breaking tank that is so powerful they become the only choice and a healer that is a complete joke whose abilities can be a liability for your team! What do you mean no one is liking them!?

At this point the Overwatch community is beginning to understand that the transition to Overwatch 2 was mostly to attempt a new monetization method. The one-time purchase of the game doesn’t really make a lot of money even with the option to purchase lootboxes. Especially with public opinion of lootboxes on the down swing as other developers turned them into surprise mechanics and finding game features through chance. So, what is the popular way to make money now? Free to play with battle passes! Don’t have your players buy your items, have them grind countless hours for mediocre items! And allow the richer players an option to buy them outright… But what about players who missed out on opportunity to play for these skins? They can buy them with an in-game currency where over 100 hours of play is needed to buy our best skins! And we’ll lock away our new characters, our new content behind these walls! Pure genius! More like complete and utter garbage.

Blizzard managed to turn a promising and popular game franchise into a game that barely anyone wants to play. Your pro scene, a good indication on the health of your game? Has barely any competition outside of your pro and collegiate scenes. No organizations sponsor new teams because there aren’t any. How about content creators? Overwatch isn’t in the top ten on Twitch in viewer count or streaming hours. Your Youtubers are finding new titles. Your pros migrated to Valorant. You f***ing lost. You directed Overwatch to the worst fate for a game; gamer apathy and abandonment. But you still have one hope to turn things around: the PvE! Wait. What do you mean you weren’t planning on releasing it!!

According to the game’s director Aaron Keller, the origins of implementing PvE into Overwatch came from when the project was still in development under Project Titan. In a blog posted in response to the public outrage, including mine, to the cancelation of the PvE, Keller explained that the translation of taking the remaining portions of Titan started after Overwatch was released in 2016, which means that the team had 7 years to work on it! That’s more time than most Triple A games, so one would expect that a side feature to a game would be ready by then. But no. The end result of 7 years of work is a piece of sh** that even the developers didn’t like. To use their own words the team found their work uninteresting and not fun. So what in the world were you doing with the money that we paid you? You do realize that you sold us Overwatch 2 on the pretense that the Hero Mode would be included? That’s called false advertising! Hero Mode was all over your ads and trailers. Let’s cut to the chase Blizzard. You f***ing lied to us. You pieces of sh**! We can’t even go play Overwatch, the original one, because in your wisdom, you shut down those servers to force the players into Overwatch 2, to milk more money from us!

You want to know the real reason why the PvE was canceled from Overwatch 2? Blizzard still wants to make a new game or a MMO from the PvE content. Milk us even more! This must have been why Jeff Kaplan left. He didn’t want to be a part of this trainwreck. He saw the writing on the wall. What happened to you Blizzard? You used to be kings of PC gaming and now you are as bad as EA and Square Enix. The bottom of the ladder. Did Activision steal all of your resources? Blizzard became another worker in the Call of Duty slave mines? Your company is still filled with sex offenders and f***ing anti-union lawyers? Just get out of our sight. I don’t care if Diablo IV is coming out this year or even if it’s good. In my eyes, there is no saving your company now.

This is also bad for Microsoft. Not only did they have to deal with the fallout of the failure of Redfall, the very first major title they published after their acquisition of Bethesda that saw their full oversight, but now they have to deal with more terrible PR. The landscape for multiplayer games is so dry and saturated, I’ve been struggling to find something to play. Battle Royales have gotten stale, Battlefield 2042 sucks, Call of Duty is too expensive, and Valorant is a toxic filled rat fest with overpriced weapons skins. I could play something older, like Battlefront (2006) or Team Fortress 2, but both of those games are outdated, filled with bots and lack any future for new content. So, what can we do? Play single-player games. Play indie games. Play other games. Hit these f***ers in their wallets to make them pay for lying to us. Show no mercy. These companies serve us, their clients; show them what happens if they lie to us. What happens when they produce a Redfall or a Lord of the Rings Golem. Dry up their coffers and make them beg for your forgiveness and then when they are on the cusp of bankruptcy, lean down and say no.