Overwatch 2 is a perfect example of how a great game can be ruined by awful monetisation. The battle pass is constantly taunting you, your meagre coin earnings aren’t even enough for a spray, and the challenges you can complete to get some loot for free are frustrating by design and reward a pittance.
The gameplay has never been better, but what does that matter when you have an in-game economy that rewards you for not playing, and just injects you with FOMO whenever you do get in a match? This was meant to be a return to Overwatch’s early glory days. We were meant to get story modes and PvE. This is, allegedly, a sequel. But instead, all Overwatch 2 has to offer is lobbies dedicated to grinding monotonous challenges, and updates that only focus on offering more $20 skins. Worse, all of these problems are now centre stage with the diabolical new Battle for Olympus event.
Battle for Olympus - the first totally unique update since Overwatch 2 launched - is nothing more than a reskinned Deathmatch. Hell, it’s actually worse than that, it’s symbolic of all of Overwatch 2’s missed potential. It’s full of grindy challenges, it’s unoriginal, and it feels designed to wear us down into forking over real cash.
For those of us dedicated to not spending a penny, it taunts us with a new skin if we can just beat six of the new seasonal challenges. But the challenges don’t incentivize any fun. They only encourage you to mindlessly play match after match until you’ve got enough kills with one character. Then you move on to the next. There are seven characters, by the way.
Simply put, this is the worst Overwatch event we’ve had in a while. Before I came to that conclusion, I was going to tell you about all the fun gameplay changes it introduces, but they don’t even matter. Junker Queen’s new Ultimate is great, but it loses its spark when you’re on game 25 of the night, only playing to avoid paying 20 quid for a skin.
Credit where it’s due I guess, Battle for Olympus did help me realise one thing: Overwatch 2’s casual scene is a failure. Just play for ranked or don’t play at all. Seeing your SR go up will at least give you a dose of serotonin now and then. The rest of it will either grind you down or burn a hole in your pocket and let’s be honest here, Activision Blizzard is hardly worth your money or your happiness.
Blizzard has a fantastic game on its hands with the revamped Overwatch, but once again, it’s actively driving the game into the ground from the starting line. At the slightest bit of pressure, your enjoyment of the game falls apart, and you realize you were just baited into a glossy storefront all along. When PvE finally launches, I worry it will be too little too late for casual players, who likely took one look at this glorified advertisement of an event and ran the other way. Overwatch 2 is a mess, and no amount of cool temporary Ultimates will change that.