"The mood all week" - After a year of Marvel Rivals taking its lunch, Blizzard is just happy you're playing Overwatch again

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Heroes never die?

Overwatch characters dress like Sanrio mascots
(Image credit: Blizzard)

Overwatch is properly back in the limelight thanks to its biggest update ever, one that notably sacrificed the Overwatch 2 name to revive Overwatch and kicked off a multi-season narrative arc. With what I imagine is a huge sigh of relief, Blizzard Entertainment is now celebrating the game's resurgence after Marvel Rivals ate its lunch for over a year. (Literally, Winston's not had peanut butter in months.)

This week, Overwatch received a landmark five new heroes at the same time, with five more still to come sometime later in the year. All the hype led to Overwatch more than doubling its previous Steam peak, courting over 160,000 players at the same time.

Overwatch's humble brag comes after years of the hero shooter digging itself out of a hole that it actually dug itself into in the first place. A canceled PvE mode and controversial live service fluff definitely put a sour taste in the mouths of many a lapsed Overwatch player, and Marvel Rivals' aggressive first year certainly didn't help much, but it seems competition has only made both games better.

Personally speaking, the new heroes embody Overwatch's classic mix of chaos and elegance really nicely. Their movesets are clearly well-tuned and never overly complicated to use or fight against, but they're also all capable of causing a right big mess by, say, engaging in literal aerial catfights.

To Blizzard's credit, even when backlash did ignite against damage hero Anran's redesigned look, the company quickly yielded and promised that another rework would be coming sometime in Season 1.

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Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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