Overwatch

Compete Discusses: Is Overwatch League Any Good, Or What

After a full year of hype, we now have a decent idea of what the Overwatch League looks like in practice. With the season a quarter over—“Stage 1″ just ended—Compete staff checks in on how things are going. Eric Van Allen: So the first real question, I guess, is do we feel like the league…

Overwatch‘s New CTF Map Is A Big Improvement

Last year, Overwatch got a capture-the-flag mode. It was a fun distraction from the usual payload-pushing antics, but the game wasn’t designed with CTF in mind, and it showed. Some heroes were overpowered, levels were stale, and stalemates abounded. As part of this week’s “Year of the Dog” event, Blizzard has revamped the mode, and…

Potential New Overwatch League Team Names, Ranked

Earlier today on an quarterly earnings call, Activision Blizzard announced that it plans to add new franchises and cities to the Overwatch League in its second season. The Compete staff came up with a few suggestions for those teams’ names. Some were very good; others, quite bad. Here they are, ranked best to worst. 1.…

You Can Now Pilot D.Va’s Mech (And Use Other Overwatch Weapons) In Doom

Hairy arms and all. This wonderful little mod by MyNameIs adds stuff like D.Va’s mech from Overwatch to Doom (well, GZDoom, the modern platform for it). It’s more than a quick little joke: once summoned, you can stomp around the map shooting stuff to your heart’s content. The mod, called OverDOOM, also introduces a bunch…

Blizzard Bans Overwatch Griefer Who’s Ruined Games For ‘Thousands’ Of Players

“I don’t want to stream the game, because I literally get stream sniped every day,” said popular streamer TimTheTatMan of a particular griefer who kept interfering with his matches. Now Blizzard’s announced that it has banned the griefer, but only after discovering that they were using multiple accounts and “systematically ruining Overwatch games for thousands…

Blizzard has announced the details of Overwatch’s “Year of the Dog” event, which kicks off on February 8. It’ll include a new capture-the-flag-specific map set in Thailand, redesigned rules that eliminate draws and make CTF more “action-packed,” and a four-week competitive CTF season. Also, there will be skins, because there will always be skins, until…

Report: Geguri Will Be The First Woman Signed To An Overwatch League Team

Overwatch League has no women players, a fact that’s been glaringly apparent ever since the league’s debut media event, where Korean pro Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon’s name came up multiple times. Now, however, a report from ESPN claims that Geguri’s signing to an OWL team, the Shanghai Dragons. ESPN cites “multiple sources close to the players…

Play Every Overwatch Hero

There are those who’ll tell you that Overwatch is at its best when you’re playing your favorite hero, pushing the limits of your skill and reflexes to unseen heights. They are wrong. Play every hero. Play the ones you love. Play the ones you hate. Play the ones who infuriate you every time the enemy…

Overwatch Glitch Spawns Unlimited Bots Into A Single Game

In Overwatch, two teams of six compete to see who’s best at avoiding the payload and yelling at each other. Well, most of the time, anyway. Thanks to a recently discovered glitch that allows you to spawn unlimited bots in custom game modes, players have been creating matches that are, shall we say, somewhat lopsided.…

Struggling Overwatch Dynasty Finds Important Win In Last Night’s Matches

Last night’s clash between the Houston Outlaws and the Seoul Dynasty in the Overwatch League was dire for both teams. One was trying to keep a streak alive, another recovering from two straight losses, and both still posturing for a playoff berth. Seoul has been in a rut after falling from undefeated to 5-2, galaxy-braining…

The Overwatch League’s Dominant Team Got The Shit Kicked Out Of Them Last Night

After eking out a thrilling 2-1 opening win over Dallas, the Seoul Dynasty found their footing in the Overwatch League and started rolling; in the last couple weeks, they’ve seemed basically unbeatable. The Dynasty are the rebranded iteration of Lunatic-Hai, long considered one of the best Overwatch teams in the world, so it makes sense…

Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel, In A Single Play

This Doomfist play, which Dallas Fuel star DPS player Hyeon “Effect” Hwang pulled off against Philadelphia Fusion in an Overwatch League match today, is nuts—the kind of thing regular players will be attempting for weeks to come. In the end, however, it failed spectacularly. At this point, Dallas Fuel’s out-of-the-arena troubles are well documented, but…

There Are No Necessary Picks In Overwatch Anymore

“RIP Mercy,” Overwatch players mumbled after the game’s main healer suffered a big nerf on Tuesday. It was a long-coming but controversial change that made the game’s essential hero no longer so. It also sent a firm message to Overwatch’s players—one that the recently-launched Overwatch League is hammering in with each pro match: No hero…

Overwatch Voice Actors Try, And Fail, To Name Every Hero In The Game Under Pressure

The test here, conducted by D Piddy at SacAnime a few weeks back, was simple: name all 26 Overwatch heroes. And do it in 20 seconds or less. A bunch of cosplayers present at the show were asked, but also many of the game’s voice actors, including Anjali Bhimani (Symmetra), Elise Zhang (Mei), Crispin Freeman…

People Are Putting Video Game Faces On Real Porn, The End Is Nigh [UPDATE]

Fake porn has been around since time immemorial, but recent months have seen the practice take an unsettling leap forward thanks to AI-based video technology that allows people to easily map other people’s faces onto bodies that aren’t their own. Now video game characters’ faces are getting stitched onto IRL bodies as well. Warning: the…

Blizzard Nerfs Mercy’s Rez

After weeks on Overwatch’s public test realm, Blizzard’s big Mercy nerf has gone live. The controversial set of changes centers around the effect Mercy’s ult, Valkyrie, had on her resurrect ability. Previously, Valkyrie took away resurrect’s cast time. Now it doesn’t. It also granted a bonus resurrect. It doesn’t do that anymore either. In addition,…

I Think I Understand Sports Fans Now

Two winters ago, a high school pal whom I hadn’t seen in several years while he served in Afghanistan was back in New York, and, en route to a night of reconnecting over bowls of warm ramen, he abruptly ruined everything with a suggestion: Let’s go to a sports bar around the corner and watch…

Princess Peach, Protecting The Payload

Look, if Nintendo can work with Ubisoft, they can work with Blizzard. Art by Antonio Demico.

Finally, Upsets Are Happening In Overwatch League

For its first two weeks, Overwatch League settled into a predictable rhythm: top-tier teams Seoul Dynasty, New York Excelsior, and London Spitfire sat perched atop their perfect records while everybody else squabbled for scraps beneath the table. At the end of last week, those three teams were at a combined 12-0. This week, that tide…

Link Gets A Hole-In-One

Today on Highlight Reel we have flying ships, flying rocks, flying cars, and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! Catch up on all the…