Overwatch 2 Season 15 seems to be taking place effectively, bettering sentiment round what was as soon as the worst ever user-reviewed sport on Steam.
We’re now practically 9 years out from the debut of Overwatch in 2016, and two-and-a-half from the launch of Overwatch 2. In August 2023, Overwatch 2 turned the worst user-reviewed sport on Steam ever, with most of the destructive opinions targeted on monetization after developer Blizzard was heavily-criticised for forcing its premium predecessor to replace right into a free-to-play sequel, rendering the unique Overwatch unplayable again in 2022.
Overwatch 2 subsequently endured plenty of controversies together with the cancellation of its long-awaited PvE Hero mode — the one characteristic, gamers mentioned, that justified the sequel’s existence.
However whereas Overwatch 2 nonetheless has a ‘principally destructive’ person evaluation score on Steam for all opinions, latest opinions have proven an enchancment to ‘combined.’ Meaning 43% of the 5,325 person opinions left in the final 30 days had been constructive.
That may not sound like a lot to crow about, however for Overwatch 2, which has endured overwhelming negativity since its launch on Valve’s platform, it’s a major milestone.
This enchancment has to do with the latest launch of Season 15, which made plenty of dramatic adjustments to Overwatch 2. Whereas the roadmap forward contains a lot of what you’d anticipate to see by way of new content material, the core gameplay itself has seen a seismic shift, together with the additions of hero perks and the return of loot bins.
“They only launched Overwatch 2,” reads one latest constructive evaluation. “The latest replace is what the sport ought to all the time have been earlier than company greed obtained in the means.”
“For as soon as, I have to come to Overwatch’s protection and say they actually have stepped up their sport,” reads one other. “Going again to what labored in Overwatch 1 whereas introducing new and enjoyable mechanics to the sport. A sure sport made them LOCK IN and I could not be happier. Now we simply gotta look ahead to subsequent season with an precise cooler battlepass.”
That’s a reference to the vastly common Marvel Rivals, an analogous aggressive multiplayer hero shooter from NetEase that’s seen 40 million downloads since launching in December.
In a latest interview with GamesRadar, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller mentioned the new actuality Blizzard finds itself in, with Marvel Rivals now out in the wild and attracting tens of hundreds of thousands of gamers.
“We’re clearly in a brand new aggressive panorama that I believe, for Overwatch, we have by no means actually been in earlier than, to this extent the place there’s one other sport that is so comparable to the one which we have created,” Keller mentioned.
You’d assume this may be a nasty factor for Overwatch, then, however Keller known as the state of affairs “thrilling,” and even mentioned it was “actually nice” to see Marvel Rivals take concepts established by Overwatch in a “totally different route.”
Nonetheless, Keller admitted Marvel Rivals’ success had compelled a change in angle inside Blizzard when it comes to Overwatch 2, saying: “that is now not about enjoying it protected.”
After all, it’s means too early to declare Overwatch “again,” and there’s a push and pull with Overwatch 2’s Steam person opinions that means it’ll be extraordinarily tough for the sport to enhance upon ‘combined,’ it doesn’t matter what Blizzard does. In the meantime, Season 15 has prompted an uptick in gamers on Valve’s platform, with peak concurrent participant numbers nearly doubling to 60,000. It’s price noting that Overwatch 2 is obtainable on Battle.web, PlayStation, and Xbox, and neither Blizzard, Sony, nor Microsoft make participant numbers publicly out there.
For context, Marvel Rivals, which launched a brand new mid-season replace itself lately, had 305,816 peak concurrent gamers on Steam over the final 24 hours.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.