Overwatch is a multiplayer first-person shooter game released by Blizzard Entertainment in May 2016 in which two teams compete to complete objectives and can be played on any powerful console, such as Xbox. To achieve the goals, players must eliminate those on the other team. The matches take place in a variety of well-constructed maps.

Overwatch 2 is set to release on October 4th of this year and has many players enthusiastically awaiting its release and hoping for it to improve upon its predecessor, Overwatch.

Even though I enjoy playing Overwatch, there are quite a few issues that I hope are improved in Overwatch 2.

The first, and most crucial flaw of Overwatch, is that your teammates control the outcome too much. You will most likely lose if matched with “trash” teammates. Even professionals matched with bad teammates have a high chance of losing. You can try to carry your team, but if you are not all working as a unit, it will not work. For example, you receive medals during a game that compare your stats to those of your teammates, and a lot of times, you could have gold eliminations as a healer.

I posed this issue to my friend, Saint Paul’s sophomore Harrison Rollins, to which he responded, “Once I was playing tracer [a damage hero] and had 41 kills and four gold medals. I never healed because my team was terrible, but we still won. At the end of a game, I asked who had the second most amount of kills. It was the healer. He had 22 kills.”

His experience illustrates the flaw that his healer wasn’t helping the team as they were supposed to. It can be annoying when a healer isn’t doing his job but instead focuses on eliminating opponents, something that should be left to the damage and tank heroes. 

Another issue many Overwatch players bring up is that the game can get repetitive. I agree with this and believe that more maps could be introduced. However, if I need something fresh, I will play a different character or another game entirely. 

A third problem I would like to see changed in Overwatch 2 is the lack of characters. Adding more heroes will improve replay ability. It could add more variability and change the dynamics. In video game critic Tyler Colp’s article, “The state of Overwatch in 2022: Waiting for More,” he references how players feel toward the game right now: “Long-time players are burnt out, frustrated over the same issues… Every day puts more pressure on what Overwatch 2 will be, and it remains to be seen if it can deliver on that.”

These issues lead to the changes, and hopefully improvements, that Overwatch 2 will make. For starters, players hope to rework the placement matches to be put into a rank with similar players. Secondly, according to pcgamer.com, multiple maps will be introduced to bring a new freshness to games. Furthermore, there will only be five people on a team; this almost eliminates repetitiveness because it leaves teams with a new decision to make: Do you use only one healer or one tank? Finally, the game will introduce a few new heroes will brand new abilities. 

For those unfamiliar with Overwatch, there are four categories of match types: quick play, arcade, competitive, and game browser. Each contains an array of game modes. Still, I will be focusing on competitive because it is what I play the most. In competitive, or comp, there are two rounds for the teams to face off, with a third or fourth round possible in the case of a tie. In each match, the teams will compete to finish one of two randomly chosen objectives: capture the objective or deliver the payload. Neither is more fun than the other, for the maps cater to the match type. While one team tries to capture the point or move the payload, the other must prevent the attacking team by defending said objective or stopping the load.

In competitive, a player can either choose to play role queue or open queue. In role queue, there are two of every character type, while in the empty string, there are no limits. Before a match, each player chooses a character or “hero,” as Blizzard named them. There are three types of characters to choose from: tank, damage, and support. The names describe the characters in that selection. Tanks have a lot of health and can draw fire or shield teammates; damage heroes have less health but make up for that with the amount of damage they can output; and supports heal their teammates. I enjoy playing tank and damage the most, for I can help my team most in those roles.

Every hero typically has two to three abilities and one “ultimate.” Capabilities usually help with the character’s damage output or mobility; after using a command, it replenishes after its time-based cool-down. The ultimate ability is charged by damaging and eliminating other players. Usually, teams will strategize and use one ultimate in conjunction with another to destroy multiple enemies or drive the opposing team back.

I enjoy playing Reinhardt because when he uses his ultimate “Earth Shatter,” he knocks all characters caught in its wake to the ground, stunning them. When used correctly, my team and I can eliminate a few of our opponents. After successfully pushing the other team back, we may complete the objective and win the round.

In sum, many players think Overwatch is getting old. It has a few flaws that can make it hard to come back to for some. However, the anticipated release of Overwatch 2 stands to fix all of the problems with the original game, while hopefully sticking to its roots.