‘Scammy Dumpster Fire’—Overwatch 2 Steam Debut Review Bombed Into Oblivion

Overwatch 2, the sequel to Blizzard’s 2016 first-person crew shooter Overwatch, has lastly launched on the favored PC sport retailer Steam—and it’s already acquired almost 50,000 unfavorable evaluations attacking Blizzard with a litany of complaints. 

The free-to-play core Overwatch 2 sport and its 4 bundle variations—which price numerous sums of cash and include further cosmetics or characters as downloadable content material (DLC)—have all been rated “overwhelmingly unfavorable” on Steam. Overwatch 2 initially launched on Blizzard’s personal BattleNet launcher final fall, however simply hit Steam on Thursday.

At time of writing, the sequel’s major Steam web page has acquired roughly 47,000 unfavorable evaluations and simply 5,700 constructive evaluations in in the future. Out of this onslaught, although, simply 14 are listed as “verified” Steam patrons. Out of these reviewers, the bulk are additionally unfavorable.

Within the unfavorable evaluations for the 4 DLC packs, many reviewers reported that they by no means acquired the extra content material they bought by way of the Steam bundles. Others stated that it took upwards of 13 hours to obtain the content material they’d bought.

Whereas many of the DLC patrons left unfavorable evaluations as a result of they didn’t instantly obtain bought content material, the vast majority of Overwatch 2’s unfavorable Steam evaluations are from followers who seem to have been annoyed with the franchise for a while.

Many Overwatch followers have beforehand vented their frustrations on official Blizzard boards, together with Reddit, Twitter, and different platforms—that’s nothing new. However now, the barrage of unfavorable feedback at Steam’s point-of-sale might impression Blizzard’s backside line.

For years, Overwatch gamers have argued that too little content material had been added to the unique sport to maintain it feeling recent. A few of the anxieties apparently subsided when Overwatch 2 was introduced in November 2019.

The sequel was first positioned as an expanded model of the unique with higher graphics, improved audio, and a posh player-vs-environment (PvE) mode through which every playable character or “hero” in Overwatch would have ability bushes that might be leveled up and customised over time, like in a role-playing sport (RPG).

This ability tree PvE demo was demonstrated to hundreds of followers again at Blizzard’s BlizzCon expo in 2019, and gamers received hands-on playtests with a style of what Overwatch 2 was initially deliberate to be. In 2019, followers extensively hailed the ability tree PvE demo as spectacular, and participant sentiment was excessive.

However the PvE mode was canceled and the unique Overwatch was sundown, forcing followers onto a sequel that didn’t dwell as much as expectations.

“They need to make a sequel that features the entire PvE expertise we have been promised with ability bushes and name it Overwatch 2,” one sarcastic evaluation reads, which has acquired over 9,000 “useful” votes from different Steam customers.

In Could, Overwatch Sport Director Aaron Keller apologized to gamers and defined in a weblog put up that PvE content material was scrapped as a result of the crew was “by no means in a position to convey collectively the entire components wanted to ship a cultured, cohesive expertise.”

Overwatch was all the time meant to evolve from being a first-person shooter (FPS) sport to an FPS PvE sport, however then finally to a larger-scale massively multiplayer on-line (MMO) sport, Keller wrote.

“We had an thrilling, however gargantuan imaginative and prescient,” Keller added, “and we have been repeatedly pulling sources away from the dwell sport in an try to appreciate it.”

As a substitute, Overwatch 2 provided improved graphics, audio, a number of new heroes, and a brand new sport mode sort referred to as Push, amongst different options. Simply this week, Overwatch 2 launched a brand new “Invasion” occasion, with story-based “missions” and a brand new help hero, Illari.

However Steam reviewers decried the franchise’s swap from an upfront cost (initially $40) to a free-to-play mannequin with a Battle Cross and cosmetics that must be bought after they have been beforehand unlockable totally free within the first sport.

“Overwatch 2 has no respect for you, it’s an try and pry open your pockets whereas masquerading as the sport it was,” one Steam reviewer wrote in a put up that has acquired almost 16,000 “useful” votes. One other consumer described the sport as a “scammy dumpster fireplace.”

A number of different reviewers argued that Overwatch’s huge world of user-generated pornography was higher than Blizzard’s personal sequel. Others instructed players play Group Fortress 2 as an alternative—a first-person crew shooter sport first launched in 2007 that shares some similarities with Blizzard’s title.

However as Steam reviewers decry Blizzard’s previous decisions, the sport remains to be seeing gamers go surfing. Steamdb knowledge exhibits that Overwatch 2 had over 75,000 concurrent gamers at peak earlier at the moment, and that stat doesn’t embody gamers logging into the sport by way of BattleNet. Over 70,000 viewers are additionally watching streamers play the sport on dwell streaming web site Twitch, making it the Tenth-most widespread sport on the positioning.

Blizzard and Valve didn’t instantly reply to Decrypt’s requests for remark.