Overwatch

Turrets Are Making Overwatch Players Miserable

A couple characters in Overwatch, Torbjörn and Bastion, use turrets. They are pretty ridiculous. Automated turrets are a staple in first-person shooters, including obvious Overwatch inspiration Team Fortress 2. Torbjörn actually has quite a bit in common with TF2’s Engineer class; he even bonks the crap out of his handy dandy fun-sized murder machine to…

Overwatch Is Still Giving Out ‘Play of the Game’ For Doing Nothing

Overwatch is remarkably polished for a game in beta testing, but… it’s still a game in beta testing. Overwatch’s “play of the game” feature is great. It’s a nice way to cap off a match, showing a player wrecking shop in the kills or heals department. When you earn it, it feels amazing. When somebody…

Overwatch‘s New Progression System Is A Big Step In The Right Direction

Overwatch is back! And in case you were worried, no, Blizzard didn’t ruin it. Overwatch is, broadly speaking, very good—and has been since its first closed beta late last year. It’s a fun, lightning-fast team-based shooter that draws a surprising amount of character inspiration from MOBAs like League of Legends and DOTA 2. What Blizzard…

Here’s All The New Stuff In Overwatch Today

After a two-month-long hiatus, Blizzard just released their first-person shooter named after an XCOM defensive technique back into the wild. Good timing. Though Overwatch was already pretty great during its initial beta, it definitely needed… more. A winter slumber in the Blizzard video game development cave appears to be just what the doctor (who I…

The Overwatch closed beta is coming back next week. Starting February 9, anyone who had access to the beta for Blizzard’s hero shooter last year will be able to rejoin and check out the new mode and changes.

The Overwatch beta will be back next month, Blizzard says. They’re planning on adding a new game mode to the hero-based shooter that will launch when it returns

Curious about the future of Overwatch’s progression system? Here’s director Jeff Kaplan talking about how they’re iterating on the design for Blizzard’s character-based shooter, which will re-enter beta early next year.

Overwatch is going to release new characters and maps as free updates, rather than paid DLC, game director Jeff Kaplan said in a developer update today. Previously nobody knew for certain how Blizzard would monetize this aspect of their game. Phew! via Polygon

Overwatch’s beta is taking a break. On Dec 10th Blizzard’s team-based shooter will go offline for an “extended” period. The break is temporary; the beta will return in mid-to-late January. Blizzard plans to use the time to make improvements to the core game and work on features like spectating and progression.

One Of My Best Overwatch Plays Was Pure Dumb Luck

I wish I could tell you that I knew who I shot at blindly and somehow ended up killing. Ah well. Next time!

An Overwatch Character Is Helping Me Enjoy A Multiplayer Shooter

Overwatch, with its heavy MOBA influences, isn’t like other multiplayer first-person shooters. And the more I play of the game, the more I think that’s a very, very good thing. The thing I’ve enjoyed most about Overwatch so far is how extreme it’s been in designing its characters. With four distinct classes of combatant to…

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Overwatch’s new tank character “D. Va” has an ult that triggers her giant armored mech to detonate and kill everything caught within its blast range. “Everything” includes you, I just found out in the hardest possible way. You know what the best part of this is? I somehow got that match’s play of the game…for…

Zarya is one of the coolest characters in Overwatch. She is also, like all characters, subject to crossplay. This is Jechts’ attempt at the character, which he pretty much nails, from the hair down to the tattoo on the shoulder. Photos by Alive Alf

Let’s Play A Round Of Paladins, Where Overwatch Meets Hearthstone 

Launching into closed beta today, Hi-Rez Studios’ Paladins is a hero-based shooter like Overwatch, but its collectible card-based in-game leveling system is something else. Here’s how a match of Paladins plays out. Players pick a character out of the eight currently available (no doubling up) and spawn in their base. The match begins with the…

Blizzard Has Big Plans For Overwatch‘s Story

Overwatch is a competitive team-based shooter—not exactly the genre people go to for stirring tales and convincing characters. Blizzard wants to change that. For now, there’s no plan for a single-player Overwatch campaign. How, then, can Blizzard tell a story without tossing up roadblocks to the fast action people seek in these sorts of games?…

Something Weird Happened In My Last Game Of Overwatch

I told you guys that D. Va was a total badass. But did I tell you that she’s so much of a badass that she can get Overwatch’s coveted “Play of the Game” just by walking? It’s moments like these that make me stop and think: “And this is why Overwatch is still in beta.”

Overwatch’s New Mech Warrior ‘D. Va’ Is A Total Badass

Shortly after Blizzcon 2015 ended, Blizzard added three playable characters to its excellent new shooter Overwatch. Most of the hype is centered around the pro gamer-turned-mech pilot “D. Va,” which makes sense, since she fights with a gigantic friggin’ mech that’s bright pink. Awesome. In Overwatch lore, D. Va is actually a fictional former StarCraft…

MOBAs Can Learn A Thing Or Two From Overwatch

Overwatch is, at the very least, a MOBA-like game. This means that it has some features that are similar to the ones in Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends, and Dota 2. Except they’re a lot better in Overwatch I’ve been playing Overwatch for a little over a week now, and I fully expect…

What’s More Exciting Than Overwatch? More Overwatch Animation. 

Yannick might be quite fond of Overwatch, but I wasn’t charmed by an online shooter. I was charmed by a beautifully animated trailer. As this storyboard animation reel from BlizzCon demonstrates, there’s a lot more animation on the way. During yesterday’s World of Overwatch panel at BlizzCon, Chris Metzen and crew talked about how a…

Why Overwatch Isn’t Free-To-Play

Everyone thought Blizzard’s excellent new shooter, Overwatch, was gonna be free-to-play. Then it wasn’t. It’s going for $40 (or $60 for a special edition). What happened? The long and short of it is, while Overwatch—with its expanding roster of MOBA-esque heroes and focus on multiplayer—might seem like a no-brainer for the “party upfront, business in…