As a competitive game, Overwatch 2 is in the best state it's ever been, but its story and hero selection are in a much more tenuous place. Blizzard is finally moving the hero shooter's narrative along and teasing heroes fans have been waiting to learn more about for years , but it's still mostly just gesturing at forward momentum rather than making significant leaps.
The is tough to describe because the joke is that it doesn't really mean anything. It started as a repeated phrase in video edits about tall basketball players, then became associated with a pseudo-shrugging motion after a video of a kid saying it while doing one went viral . It is functionally meaningless; kids are just saying it. And now, Soldier: 76 will be saying it too in Overwatch 2 matches starting later today.
In an almost six-minute audio drama, Commander Vivian Chase, aka Sojourn, addresses the public. Null Sector, the Omnic resistance group that rose up in the initial campaign, has apparently retreated following a "final battle" with Overwatch in Buenos Aires. Sojourn answers a handful of questions at a press conference, name-drops some Overwatch 2 characters like the shield-wielding Brigitte and the Omnic tank Orisa's creator Efi, and says that things are chill, for now.
The Halloween event this year is called Haunted Masquerade, and it lets you put on masks based on different heroes that grant you different perks. Some of these buffs are simple, such as Tracer's mask granting you increased movement speed and Junkrat's making your enemies explode when they die. Other hidden perks are found when you pair some masks with specific heroes. If you're playing as Brigitte, for example, wearing the Reinhardt mask will make your shield as large as his.
Kiriko is dressed as a donut store employee, and even her fox spirit, which she casts out when she uses her ultimate, is carrying a pastry in its mouth. Cassidy hasn't fallen too far from his roots, as he's still depicted as a criminal, but as a fugitive on the run and dressed in prison orange. Ramattra is probably my favorite of the three, however; as the radical Omnic no longer has a war to wage, he has become a housekeeper.
During a recent interview with GameSpot, Keller was asked about the potential of a large-scale Overwatch story along the lines of Netflix's Castlevania and Arcane adaptations. "The team would love to have something like that come out," said Keller. "You know, we're also fans of those shows and fans of those universes. To have something like that for Overwatch would be really, really cool. But I can't really discuss the plans for future stuff like that."
I recently had the opportunity to discuss the state of Overwatch 2 with game director Aaron Keller and associate game director Alec Dawson in an exclusive interview for GameSpot, and it seems a lot of this dramatic turn-around boils down to two things: an increased emphasis on responding to player feedback, and a sharp pivot away from the "conservative" mentality the Overwatch 2 team once clung to. The result is a vastly improved game that is taking big swings with more efficiency.
