I am really struggling on where to put Zarya. She's a Russian soldier with arms like Redwoods, so I think tanks would come fairly naturally to her. Then again, it has been heavily speculated that Zarya is gay, and we all know gays can't drive. A pickle. Maybe she'd aim well but struggle with three-point turns. Let's put her in fourth and stop worrying about

As a - very - casual Overwatch fan , the characters have always been my favourite thing about the hero shooter. They only tell vague stories, but they’re so well designed and are bursting with such life that they feel like bigger characters than they actually are. They’re similar to comic book characters; you don’t need to have read the decades long history between Batman and the Joker, you just see their iconic designs and you instantly feel as if you know them. Whether it’s Ashe and her Wild West gunslinger aesthetic, D.Va’s e-girl vibe, or Winston the science monke, the character designs tell their own stories. That’s why the recent Archives event feels like a big missed opportun

Overwatch finally got a Black woman with the launch of Overwatch 2, but it's odd that they are still outnumbered in the game by animals. In any case, Winston has the opposite problem of Wrecking Ball. He's a big ol' gorilla, and therefore too large for the tank. He's above Wrecking Ball entirely because if you could squeeze him in there (give him a big buttery butt or something), he could probably make a go of it. But also, even then he'd probably break the controls, so second bottom it

I know, I know, the medal system was flawed. In an effort to curb toxicity, the original Overwatch team opted to forgo a traditional scoreboard and instead use a medal system that would vaguely tell you how well you’re doing. During and after a match you could see how well you did compared to your team based. Across a series of categories from eliminations, to damage dealt, to healing, the top three performers would receive gold, silver, and bronze medals. If you have a particularly good game, you might even receive gold medals in multiple categor

These days, I’m lucky enough to work in games, and that means even if I don’t get a game code, I know that I’ll be able to write about a game and make money off it. In 2016 when Overwatch released, that wasn’t the case. I’d buy new games, beat them, then flip them at a second hand shop and use that money to buy another game, and so on. That’s a big part of why single player games, with a definitive ending, matter so much to me. The Witcher, The Last of Us, Horizon, Grand Theft Auto 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, and every FIFA from 09 to 19 all entered my life that way. Countless others, too. Despite this, I still have my old Overwatch disc, gathering dust on my shelf as it dwindles in value and my play time trickles up by a few measly minutes every six months or so. There’s just something very compelling about Overwatch’s existence that never quite translates to its gamep

On the other hand, they could merely be small expansions of the Archives seasonal events where you traverse across bland environments doing battle with generic robots until the objective is reached. These events are... fine, but they aren’t that exciting, lacking the competitive edge of multiplayer that makes Overwatch so wonderfully thrilling to play. If a sequel does anything, it needs to overhaul how we engage with it over a long period of t

Meanwhile, he’ll see Tracer on the other side of the war, since she’s a Redcoat Cavalrywoman with twin Revolutionary-era revolvers in her hip holsters. I understand the logic behind click this; lots of the other characters delve into their national cultural heritage too. Widowmaker is a Mousquetaire, Zarya a Polyanitsa warrior, Genji a samurai, and Lucio a Conquistador. But for a long time, the excuse held up in defence of Tracer and Soldier 76’s queerness only featuring off-screen is that Overwatch simply isn’t the type of game that allows for anything more. Well, the Archives skins do. There is so much cultural history in their queerness, in Stonewall and the earliest Pride protests, in the punk movement, in art, and through cultural trailblazers that speak to the heart of who Soldier 76 is far more than just putting him in a different soldier outfit from a few centuries

Roadhog's name implies he's something of an expert driver, so he had to make the top three. His playstyle is far more close quarters than most Tanks though, which doesn't seem too suited than tanks themselves. While sure, tanks can roll over and crush anything in their immediate vicinity, they're used for attacks from a distance, so Roadhog's name gets him a medal, but his combat preferences see him settle from bro

I don’t really need an Overwatch story mode or an Overwatch spin-off to exist; I’m happy believing I’d love them if they ever came to life, and I don’t need to test that theory. A single player futuristic Western revenge drama with Ashe and McCree as the leads? Yes please. A Netflix adaptation of Overwatch’s main story with Maisie Williams as Tracer? Sounds amazing - please never make it. The idea of literally any genre of solo game with Mei or Mercy sounds fantastic, but it would never live up to my expectations and I’m much happier in my ignorant hope than in cold, hard real