A crossover between Diablo 4 and Overwatch should be an easy win. They're both owned by Blizzard, and they each have huge fanbases who generally love aesthetics and a bit of novelty. The in-game rewards are all well and good, but the action-RPG's new skins from the FPS aren't getting the strongest reaction from players.
Just like World of Warcraft and Starcraft before it, Overwatch is stepping into the hellfire of Diablo 4. Starting June 30, you can earn Eye of the Overwatch currency through defeating Elite and Champion foes to spend on special loot, for a limited time. In the game's regular shop, you'll find skins themed around the hero shooter, though players don't seem too fussed about those from first impressions.
"None of these look appealing or fit the universe to me," a fan bluntly says on Reddit. I can sympathize with the latter, because a couple of them are close to their original designs. Mercy's the biggest perpetrator, in my eyes, and the skin sticks out from Diablo's gloominess.
Commenters aren't holding back. "Mercy looks like a 90-year-old grandma here," writes another fan on Reddit. "This some bad comic con cosplay type shit," says a Redditor. "And even that's being disrespectful to cosplayers because most of them are miles better than this."
The frequency and pricing of these collaborations are big factors for the disdain. The StarCraft skins, for instance, ran you $185 for a complete set. World of Warcraft's came to over $540. Those are comfortably more than what it would cost you to buy the individual games and their expansions.
One player on Reddit notes the pricing on Fortnite, where such crossovers are rife, is much more reasonable collaboratively. "For context, an expensive bundle in Fortnite is generally less than half what the 'discounted' WoW bundle cost," they write. "Diablo 4's item store is completely insane and totally unacceptable for a game someone has already potentially spent £100 buying."
The Overwatch collaboration kicks off as part of Diablo 4 season 14, on June 30.
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