In 2017 and 2018, Overwatch dominated my life. I was always excited to play events for the chance of getting new skins for my favorite characters. I was a huge fan of the PvE modes that were a nice change of pace. I even dipped my toes into competitive, and while I wasn’t exactly good, I at least had fun. However, over the past year, I’ve simply been losing interest. I haven’t played this game in months. I have no desire to play this game that once took up so much of my time. Sure, there’s also Blizzard’s harsh anti-Hong Kong stance to consider, but that only solidified my lack of interest. So, why have I drifted away from this game?

Part of the initial attraction to Overwatch was the story and the characters. The story revolves around the titular organization, which was forced to shut down after it was found to be committing unsavory deeds. However, the villainous faction Talon is rising up, forcing the closest thing to Overwatch’s leader, Winston, to recall the team. We’ve gotten a look at characters from both sides and how they operated in Overwatch’s heyday and its decline, as well as characters that seem tangentially related, like whatever nonsense Junkrat and Roadhog have going on.

It’s 2019 and Overwatch‘s story is still in phase 1. Story updates have been slow and contributed little to an overall narrative. Each new character introduced doesn’t advance the story, but instead adds to an already bloated backstory. Everything in the past three years have been building up for… something. The story and characters keeps building and building up, but as of now, there’s no pay-off in sight. While I kinda like the character interaction stuff that can pop up in the beginning of matches, that hardly satisfies the three years of anticipation.

It sincerely feels that Blizzard has no vision of where the story is going. In contrast, I’ll talk about my latest multiplayer shooter love: Apex Legends. Granted, while that game is built on pre-existing lore from Titanfall, its own original lore has moved at a brisk pace. Season 2 arguably kicked the story into gear, with the destruction of the arena and a new character related to its creation. It’s also here where custom loading screens are added to the battle pass and the descriptions of those loading screens reveals more details on the playable characters of the game and the world. Season 3 continued things, introducing the character that was responsible for the destruction of the first arena as the games are moved somewhere new, with him still plotting as a saboteur. It’s not high literature, but it’s all actual plot that’s been delivered in under a year, while Overwatch still fails to deliver.

What about the gameplay? So, Overwatch had a big problem with metas. For months at a time, certain team compositions dominated play, whether you were playing competitively or in quick play. If you wanted to have a chance of winning, you’d have to conform to the meta. The infamous GOATS meta, which consisted of three tanks and three healers, steamrolled the game so hard that much of the Overwatch League, the game’s professional esports league, was dominated by it. As a result, these metas not only made the game stagnant, but made watching the game a chore.

However, this was actually a problem that Blizzard actually addressed. Back in the summer, Blizzard introduced the role lock system, which forced games to stick to a 2 attacker/2 tank/2 healer team composition. From there, players are thrown into role queues so that they can play the game while getting to play the character they want, without pressure to switch to conform to whatever nonsense the rest of the team is pulling. From what I’ve heard, this has actually alleviated the concerns of a lot of people.

However, that does not mean balancing problems have gone away. In fact, even with the role lock system, metas can still rise up. For instance, the meta of using Orisa and the recently released Sigma emerged in the last few months. As both can set up remote barriers while still being able to attack, their combined shields can make defenses impenetrable without strong team coordination. Much like how Brigette contributed to the before mentioned GOATs, new characters like Sigma can continue to find monstrous synergies that dominate the game.

Overwatch is a game that I used to love, but it’s a game whose problems I don’t see going away. Even without Blizzard’s anti-Hong Kong stance, I no longer have interest in this game. Overwatch would need to do something real mind-blowing (and Blizzard should fix their burnt bridges) before I can consider going back.

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