It takes a lot for a multiplayer game to stand out these days - and yet, somehow, Blizzard has managed to make Overwatch do just that.
In a sea of boring, modern military shooters, Overwatch's bright colors and huge cast of characters are a very welcome change of pace - but that doesn't necessarily guarantee that Overwatch will be a good game.
This is, after all, Blizzard's first foray into the first-person shooter genre - not only that, but it's the company's first new franchise in nearly two decades (StarCraft launched back in 1998). Considering how badly Blizzard's Titan MMO crashed and burned, there's always a chance that Overwatch could suffer the same fate.
There's also the fact that, like many shooters of the past few years, Overwatch is multiplayer-only. That doesn't make it a bad game, and the promise of free downloadable content somewhere down the line certainly inspires hope, but the question remains: will there be any reason to return to Overwatch once players have seen everything the game has to offer?
Thankfully, the answer is yes. Overwatch is a ridiculously fun game, and one that finally proves that the multiplayer-only formula can actually work.
Overwatch is, at its core, a multiplayer shooter. Everything about the game revolves around taking on another team of six combatants - and, while there are a few modes that replace your teammates with AI bots, Overwatch is only really worth playing if you're going up against teams of actual people.
All matches in Ovewatch are objective-based; if you're looking for something like Team Deathmatch, you'll need to go elsewhere. Players will always be focused on a singular point on the map: you may need to escort a payload through the map, or hold and defend points from an enemy team. Modes are also built specifically for each of the 12 different stages, meaning that you'll never play a game of Escort on anything other than a designated Escort map.
At first, that may sound limiting - after all, games like Halo and Call of Duty typically support a number of modes across several maps. However, because Blizzard designed each arena to work around a single game type, Overwatch features some of the most tightly focused multiplayer maps in recent memory. Each stage is full of different paths and possible strategies, allowing and encouraging each of the game's characters to use the stage in unique ways.
Long story short, the game's modes are all a lot of fun to play, even if they're all relatively similar to one another. Plus, there's still a lot of room to grow: Deathmatch may never make an appearance in Overwatch, but it'd be interesting to see what the team could do with something like Capture the Flag or Oddball.
This review is based on both PS4 and Xbox One copies of Overwatch, provided by publisher Blizzard Entertainment.
