Overwatch Beta Impressions

While the full launch of Overwatch is only a few days away Blizzard chose to give us a beta weekend to play around with it. As betas go it’s pretty stable and functional and gives a fair idea of how the game is going to play out.

The first thing to get out of the way is that it is heavily inspired by Team Fortress. From there on it does begin to go down it’s own path. The art style is similar to Team Fortress and runs pretty well on even a modest configuration. Matches were quick to find and get started. We played about 10 matches to and we came came across most of the maps and game modes. Those familiar with TF will be able to get into the game pretty quickly.

The first of the main modes taks you to attack and capture or defend a control point against the opposing team. The other is the payload mode where you try and push a vehicle from point to point by remaining close to it. Overwatch is a very polished game production quality wise. There is a vast selection of 21 heroes to choose from across 4 different classes offense, defense, tank and support. So much so that it can all get a bit overwhelming.

While all this variety might seem good on paper it’s when you actually start playing that things can get a bit well chaotic. With so much going on around you all the time it can get very easy to simply lose your bearings. The other issue I felt was that no matter which hero I played I didn’t feel the satisfaction of actually hitting anyone. This could be a result of either too much happening around you or the basic hit feedback wasn’t very good in the first place. Rest assured it will probably take a long time to understand the nuances of each of it’s heroes.

Get more information about the beta here