The Overwatch 2 community has argued that Blizzard’s hero shooter may have become more difficult than ever for new players to jump into due to its ever-growing complexity.
Overwatch 2 is currently in its sixth season. Bolstering a new PvE campaign, battle pass, and new support hero Illari, the game has had a bunch of content injected into it of late.
However, with new heroes consistently being introduced into the game these days, players have now suggested that the game has become far more complex than when it first launched back in 2016. The introduction of new abilities and game modes has only raised the barrier to entry, many have argued.
Many Overwatch 2 players have agreed that the game is currently in one of the hardest states for new players to pick up. Especially due to it’s “counter-intuitive” ability interactions, some added.
Reddit user Der_Sauresgeber explained that with the current hero roster almost double what it used to be, the game’s balance has shifted directions based on ability interactions.
“So, I’ve been playing Overwatch since 2016 and the game was less complex back then, but nowadays with the cast almost being double what it used to be, I thought a lot about how the entire balance of the game is based on weird exceptions in ability interactions and inconsistencies that are fairly counter-intuitive,” the post reads.
In their opinion, this has made the game much harder for some newer players who have to learn each niche interaction, which can make the experience increasingly complex.
“For example, imagine someone these days plays his first game on Junkrat. He can shoot his grenades and not take a single point of damage from them. Later that night, the same guy decides to play Pharah or Soldier.
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“He thinks that explosive friendly fire is nothing to worry about, then accidentally kills himself with a rocket or helix. What happened? Well, friendly fire explosives are something to worry about, just not for Junkrat,” the player explained.
Other users also chimed in with their own examples, like Genji’s ability to deflect enemy projectiles or Reinhardt’s charge ability.
“I’ve been playing since 2016 and only last night and accidentally found out that Rein’s charge has no interaction with a Torb turret, you just stop like it’s a wall,” another pointed out.
Players who are somewhat new to the game spoke about their experiences, and how they’re still learning the game to this day.
“Yeah this game is very complex. I started playing Overwatch in OW2 season 4 as a matter of fact. And have accumulated 300 hours since then and yeah this game is insanely complex I’m still learning things every day” a player recounted.
“Same. Played since OW2 release but just realized last night I can change the direction Syms ult opens, just like you can with Mei’s wall,” another chimed in.
With Blizzard continuously releasing heroes every other season, hopefully, the developers have plans to help ease new or returning players into the action. In fact, we may already have some of this initial plan in motion now with the introduction of Hero Mastery missions, designed to give players a playground to learn a character’s kit.
