Overwatch skins doesn’t have a plot, but it does have a ton of character. Overwatch’s cast of quirky characters are interesting and diverse with unique personalities. Junkrat is a limping psychopath who wants to blow things up. Winston is a scholarly gorilla who, when provoked, dips into his rage-filled primal instincts. Tracer, the spunky Brit who serves as the game’s mascot, is full of little quips as she zips around the battlefield. Players who take the extra time to stop and admire the different map’s scenery will learn even more about the different character’s backstories. Cues, like a D.Va poster, provide clues into a character’s history prior to the game. It’s an interesting way to convey lore, but it’s never quite enough. Blizzard clearly wants Overwatch to be a big franchise with an interesting lore and they do provide that outside of the game. Much like Destiny’s Grimoire Cards, players will need to turn to sources outside the main game to learn about the lore. For example, without the animated shorts, I never would have known Hanzo and Genji were brothers. Blizzard also plans to release digital comics and graphic novels to further flesh out the lore. Now, Overwatch may not need a campaign, but it would have been nice to have some access to story content in the main game.
The traditional sniper hero of the bunch, Widowmaker is a particularly lethal character for those with solid keyboard and mouse skill, or those who are particularly great at sniping with a controller. However, if you don’t consider yourself to be particularly precise with your aim, then it’s best for everyone involved if you don’t weight down your team with a desire to get the greatest headshot of all time. Her weapon, the Widow’s Kiss, has two distinct firing modes that make her one of the highest damage dealers of the entire roster, assuming that you play her correctly. If you fire without aiming down sights, it functions as a close-to-medium range automatic assault rifle, though this should only be used to get yourself out of a jam, as it is nowhere near as powerful as its standard firing mode: the long-range sniper rifle. The longer that one aims down sights, the more powerful the shot will be (up until it fully charges to 100%), so if you’re looking to get your quickscope on, you’re playing the wrong game. Headshots are absolutely lethal, so take your time, line up your shots and ensure that you’re fully charged, as spamming only functions to give away your position.
Speaking of positioning, Widowmaker’s two core abilities allow her to either get to a new position quickly, or protect the one she’s currently holding down. The first of these abilities, her Grappling Hook, can be aimed using the reticle, and will quickly propel her towards the surface it’s fired at. Not only is this awesome for quickly reaching positions above the playing field, but it also works wonders when you’re looking to get out of a jam. Widowmaker’s second ability, the Venom Mine can be fired with an arc, and deals damage over time when triggered. This toxic gas mine isn’t just great for crowd control, though. If you’ve ever played a military shooter that allowed you to place claymores behind you while you snipe, you’ll be happy to know that the Venom Mine can have a similar effect. Finally, her ultimate, Infra-Sight, allows your entire team to track the positions of all enemies in real-time, instantly countering any flankers and generally setting you up for success.
The support class is also carefully designed for players of all skill levels. While it doesn’t ring true in every situation, there are a few support characters that focus more on aiding the team rather than outright combat, allowing for less skilled players to contribute to the overall success of the team, while more skilled players can pick from certain support characters that demand more strategic use, like Zenyatta.
Heroes of the Storm is bringing back the Heroes Brawl as Brawl Mode, opening up dozens of discontinued maps for the first time in almost five years. This new version of the classic Heroes Brawl game mode is available to play on the Heroes of the Storm Public Test Realm now and will ostensibly officially return when the patch goes live in about a mo
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 Overwatch 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.