If you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, how about a third chance?

That’s where Blizzard finds itself with Overwatch, which released its most ambitious update on Tuesday and laid out its ambitious plans for the future Last week’s Spotlight video.

The original Overwatch launched in 2016. Its rebirth as Overwatch 2 occurred in 2022, and with this week’s update, the game’s official title is once again just Overwatch. Considering all the goodwill that has slowly melted away over the last decade, it’s understandable if many people don’t want to give this new, old version of the game the time.

But if they ever did, if they were ever interested in Overwatch in the past, now would be the best time to give it another try. I’ll start by listing some of the solid, substantive reasons, but there’s more to it than that, which I’ll go into in more detail towards the end.

The story so far

First, let’s get one unpleasant thing out of the way: there is no longer a plan for robust PvE. That was supposed to be the only reason for a sequel, and it completely failed. A watered-down version of the original plan was released a few years ago, but it went nowhere. If that was your only reason for getting excited about Overwatch 2, you’ll still be disappointed. Excuse me.

Aparte de eso, there are probably a number of other reasons why people gave up on Overwatch during the “2” era. For the most part, Blizzard has addressed these concerns not with promises, but with concrete actions.

Unlock heroes. While new free-to-play accounts still need to play a certain number of games to unlock all heroes, you no longer need to go through the Battle Pass or spend real money to unlock newly added heroes. This was a controversial point in the early days of OW2, and was (rightly) seen as removing something that had always been the case in OW1 – new heroes were free and available immediately – in favor of charging money for the privilege. The new system has been in effect since April 2024.

Since Overwatch 2’s release, new heroes have been added to the game every two seasons – about four months. That changed with Tuesday’s update, which added new heroes five nuevos héroes, with five more planned over the next year. With one tank, two damage and two support characters, that’s enough to create a full team of new heroes in one patch, unless you prefer 6v6 gameplay.

Wait, what?

6v6 is back. While it seemed to make sense at first glance, removing a tank from the team composition and focusing the game on a 5v5 experience had both advantages and disadvantages. The only remaining tank player is often the focus of abuse – from both enemies and allies – and tank synergies, like Zarya bubbling Reinhardt, are dead in 5v5.

In response to all of this, Blizzard brought back a 6v6 game mode that featured all of the new heroes on the new maps. While it doesn’t offer all the features of OW1’s core mode, you can still jump in and give it a try, if only for nostalgia’s sake.

Nuevo Modos. Back when PvE was still a work in progress, Blizzard presented various upgrades that you could purchase for your heroes as you progressed. The basic framework of this system has been adapted from the main game in the form of perks, upgrades that you select for your hero twice during a game and that provide greater power or alternative abilities.

Even more transformative is Stadium, a new game mode that pits two teams against each other in a best-of-seven competition where they collect points throughout a match and then choose from a wide range of upgrades between rounds, some of which are truly mind-blowing. Flying Reinhardt? Three hyperspheres for Sigma? Self-healing for Genji? (Maybe this will finally shut him up.) The variety of different builds makes every game unpredictable and exciting, provided you can handle the chaos.

The future is now

Given all the turmoil the game and its parent company were caught up in between 2020 y 2022, it’s fair to assume that the game’s direction suffered as a result. Game director Aaron Keller admitted this in a recent post: “After moving away from PvE content, it took us some time to find our feet and refocus on what Overwatch really should be.”

The lack of content, the game director change, the Overwatch League failure, the disappointing rebrand, the destruction of PvE, and larger concerns like Blizzard’s sexual harassment lawsuits and the COVID pandemic have weakened player will and sent many players looking for alternatives like Valorant and, more recently, Rivales de Marvel.

I’ve always been skeptical of game developers (y, Bueno, people in general) who make a promise, break it, and then say, “Don’t worry, next time we’ll mean it, trust us!”

Why should I? That was the situation I found myself in when Overwatch 2 came out. Soon after, my interest waned and I pursued other interests. It would take time and the proper fulfillment of my promises to bring me fully back into the fold.

This is generally the case. The roadmaps were implemented as described, new heroes and new content were added regularly and the recent update has invigorated not only me but the entire community. The game reached its climax con más 164,000 players on the day of the new patch, up from the previous peak of 75,000 in August 2023. Anecdotally, I’ve played with a few people who said, “I haven’t played in years, but I came back this week.”

Three years ago, the promise of 10 new heroes in a year would have made me so skeptical that Winston could have heard my sigh all the way to the moon. Now I’m fully committed and have real hope for the future of the game, something I couldn’t have said in 2022.

Speaking of the future: Blizzard is on the rise Lately it’s mostly been lore videos and narrated comicswhich has led some people to theorize that something bigger is on the horizon. It’s a possibility I’m not entirely comfortable with yet, but the idea of ​​an Arcane-like series featuring Overwatch characters is tempting.

That’s how it should be, honestly. The early years of Overwatch were promising and joyful times, with no limits to what it could become. We may not reach these heights again, but we’re as close as we’ve ever been and fans finally have reason to believe so.