How Overwatch 2 Ruined The Original

I’ve been a long-time Overwatch player, with more than 1,500 hours on the original game. I played it when it was dead, and queue times, even for support and tank, were more than five minutes. When no updates came out, there was one hope among the community — Overwatch 2. It was a dream: new heroes, a full PvE mode, better graphics, and a new engine! Everything we wanted was going to happen. Then it just… didn’t.

Overwatch 2 promised to change the game forever and make it so much better than it was, but when it came out, the biggest change was adding a battle pass. After three years of waiting for the game we were promised back in 2019, Overwatch 2 came out and barely did anything except ask for more money from the players. In the original, each time you levelled up (which was every 30–60 minutes), you got a free loot box to open that contained four random cosmetic items, and if you got duplicates, you would get free in-game credits to buy skins you want when you have enough. With the “new” game, that system was deleted entirely, and instead, you now either have to buy skins in the shop or buy a battle pass, which, unlike in most games, doesn’t give you even a single in-game coin back.

The introduction of the battle pass also took away one of Overwatch’s core mechanics — counter-picking. Since release and until Overwatch 2 came out, all characters were always unlocked to everyone from the moment the game was installed. That is because one of the unique things about Overwatch is that you can and should change the character you play at any point. Every hero was strong against some characters and weak against others: if an enemy D.Va was carrying, you could change to Zarya and easily beat that player. But now, if you want access to the strong counters, you’re going to have to pay — every new character is locked behind the battle pass, and playable for everyone who bought them, even in competitive mode.

The gameplay changes present in Overwatch 2 only ruin the game. There is one less tank player in a match now, ruining the feel and balance of the matches. This was introduced to reduce queue times for DPS players and make the game feel more alive even though it’s already dying. A new competitive mode called Push has also been added with the release of 2CP; in this mode, two opposing teams have to push a giant robot into the other’s base. Even though 2CP was hated, removing it was not the way to go — it’s possible to just let us queue for only certain modes! Push isn’t good on its own as well and might be the most unbalanced competitive mode present: the team to win the first fight will either win the match or lose the second fight and the match.

Overwatch 2 also received a complete graphical overhaul, which is way worse than the original. The new UI is absolutely terrible, without the “options” button on even the main menu! In-game, it’s a lot less interesting than the original, too, all the cool effects and italics on the ability buttons are gone, and it’s just plain shapes with drawings on them. The character models look a lot worse, and of course, they sexualised every female character even more. Animations don’t look as good as they did and are way less interesting than they were originally; picking heroes was so cool in Overwatch, but now it’s boring: even D.Va’s canonical finger gun was removed and replaced by her just getting into her mech!

And even today, almost a year after the game came out, it hasn’t gotten any better. The PvE we were promised was canceled, and instead, we got three short and boring missions, each costing $5. Overwatch 2 was a disappointment when it was released and still is, and the worst part is — we can’t play the original anymore! Blizzard closed the Overwatch servers and refused to add the possibility of creating community servers. This game is a direct downgrade of the original and Blizzard doesn’t let us play the version that’s actually good, even without them having to spend a single penny on servers — we just want to run our own dedicated servers!