Overwatch Character Guide: Reaper Bastion And Mercy

One of the more unfortunate things about multiplayer games this generation is that a lot of them seem to have their moment in the sun before fizzling out. What do you think it is about Overwatch that will prevent it from being the latest game to fall into this trend? From a design perspective, what is going to make you more like a Team Fortress 2 than an Evolve ?


Yesterday evening (December 1st, at the time of writing this) was the night of the annual Game Awards show, a lavish live-streamed spectacle where the best and brightest of the video games industry gathered in Los Angeles - in order to receive awards voted on by industry peers and journalists, celebrating the year in gaming. It was a good night for big-name hits like Uncharted 4: A Thief's End , the reboot of DOOM and Blizzard's mega-selling team shooter **Overwatch ** , as well as respected independent titles like That Dragon Cancer - and it was a chance for those in attendance to show off all-new trailers for upcoming tit

Torbjörn's first ability, and the one he's most known for, allows him to build a stationary turret on any flat surface large enough to house it. Aside from the fact that this turret will automatically lock onto and fire at any enemies that wander into its range, but it can also be upgraded to a second, more powerful and hitpoint-heavy version through the use of the aforementioned Forge Hammer. Of course, this does require a bit of scrap, which is earned through kills. Not only is scrap used to upgrade Torbjörn's turret, but it also plays into his second ability, Armor pack. For the cost of fifty scrap, Torbjörn can throw down a bit of armor for either himself or his allies, which raises the amount of hitpoints that they can take before dying. Finally, his ultimate ability is known as Molten Core, and this not only significantly raises Torbjörn's health and firing rate, but it also temporarily increases the level of his turret, making it a massive damage-dealer. This lasts for a few seconds, and is a wonderful way to get foes off of an objective once a turret has already been built.

While this tweet has become the lowest-hanging fruit when it comes to criticizing Battleborn, it's completely emblematic of a game that doesn't always feel like it knows what it is. Whereas Overwatch maintains its laser-focus on providing the best multiplayer arena shooter experience possible, Battleborn often feels like it wants to be everything at once. While this provides a great deal of content for players to dive into, it also makes it feel like there's far too much present for any given mode to succeed. The campaign, which is widely considered to be the weakest portion of the entire package, is loaded with fairly mundane combat encounters and a story that feels a bit too bare-boned for its own good. Combine this with a standard point-capture mode, a straight up MOBA playlist and a MOBA-like twist mode, and Battleborn begins to lack the focus that Overwatch is priding itself on. Granted, if shield projector Overwatch 2 wasn't so damn replayable, one could argue that it's lacking in content, but the sheer dynamism of its combat more than makes up for this.

That's a great question. We've definitely changed a lot of things since the Beta; we've made a ton of decent tuning changes to the heroes. One of the things that I really wasn't expecting was the community that formed around the game, and how quickly they were able to get good at the game. We had daily tournaments with extremely good Overwatch players playing the game, and the design team watches every single one of them and we shocked at how good they were. We like to think we're pretty good at the game, since we're developing it, but these people are on an entirely different level. It made us realize that the tuning that you need to do for the low level on a hero isn't always the same as the tuning that you need to do for the high level.

There's a number of good explanations as to why Overwatch is such a fantastic game, but none greater than Blizzard's clear emphasis on making a shooter that feel awesome to play. Every character is immediately readable, meaning that the more that you play, the more knowledge you gain and, thus, the more your strategy evolves. Throughout my time with Overwatch, I have yet to encounter a dropped frame or a moment of lag, despite having every graphics setting maxed out and the servers existing in a beta state. Its shooting is as tight as a Call of Duty or Counter-Strike game, and the sheer number of colors on screen at any given moment finds a way to fill me with glee during even those frustrating moments when your team is getting throttled. Outside of playing Overwatch at the past two PAX Easts, it found a way to completely fly under my radar, and I couldn't feel dumber for brushing it off. At this moment, the only negative thing that I can say about it is that I do not want to spend a moment playing it on a console, as Overwatch feels far too good with a mouse and keyboard.