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Preview: Overwatch

Blizzard has shown time and time again that it is one of the most dominant creative developers in the market by releasing critically acclaimed games across multiple genres. From real time strategy to role-playing games, collectible card games and multiplayer online battle arenas, it seems like Blizzard isn’t afraid of branching into new areas. Now, it has its sights set on the multiplayer first-person shooter space with Overwatch.

During our hands-on session with the game at Blizzard’s Sydney office, two teams of six players went head-to-head for a few rounds of Xbox One console release of Overwatch. Before the beginning of each bout, teams are given a selection of around 20 heroes to choose from ranging between offensive, defensive, support and tank capabilities. It’s generally a great idea for your team’s composition to have a mix between these classes, but the game will also remind everyone if you’re a little lacking in a certain area. There is also nothing stopping everyone from choosing the same hero… which our team found out the hard way. But Overwatch isn’t strict so you can change your hero on-the-fly in between deaths if things aren’t going to plan.

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Each hero has a number of abilities assigned him or her that can determine their style of play. There is no upgrade system for the abilities, so everything will work from the get-go; the one exception there is your ultimate, which will be powered up over time for you to trigger. Using these abilities together as a team will hopefully ensure a victory over the opponent as you work your way to accomplishing the objective.

During our time with Overwatch, we played through three game modes: Assault, Escort and Hybrid, which is a combination of the first two modes. In Assault the attacking team is required to capture points on the map, while the defending team has to stop them. In Escort the attacking team has to stand next to a payload while it moves across a track to the end of the map; the defending team needs to eliminate the heroes standing near it to stop the payload from progressing forward. In Hybrid, you’ll first need to capture a point which has the payload and then escort it to the end of the map.

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Because Overwatch is a team-based game, communicating with each other is a fundamental aspect if you want to get competitive. We had instances where we were playing very well together one round, but then would get destroyed the next because of a team composition that didn’t suit the style of game mode which was needed. The ultimate humiliation was when the opposing team went ‘All Mei All Day’ on us — this little team of popsicles stacked with just the Mei hero used her freezing ability on us for the entire match to ensure their victory.

Overwatch is a fun and very accessible game, but it also has lot of depth to it thanks to the range of heroes on offer. It’s bound to have a big following when it’s released, and if Blizzard’s other games are anything to go by there will be a lot of content and support to follow on after it’s out.

Those who’ve pre-ordered Overwatch on Xbox One, PS4 or Windows PC will get access to the game’s closed beta from today, 3 May. On 5 May, the game opens up to all for an open beta ahead of its 24 May retail release.


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About the author

Luke Lawrie

Writing and producing content about video games for over a decade. Host of Australia's longest running video game podcast The GAP found at TheGAPodcast.com. Find me on Twitter at @lukelawrie