As I’ve said before, Overwatch is one of my favorite video games. If you disregard the player toxicity and corporate mismanagement of the franchise, what you have at its core is a visually stunning, fast-paced, objective and team-based FPS hero shooter.
Like other games in the genre, Overwatch is very mechanically-demanding—heroes are some combination of aim-intensive, mobility-intensive, game-sense reliant, etc. Even if you main a role (Tank, DPS, Support), it’s very difficult to be equally good at all heroes within a role and each hero requires mastery of their unique abilities, weapons, and movement. Each map has a different objective type (payload, king-of-the-hill, control point, capture-the-flag…) and different map geometry causes some heroes to be more viable over others on certain maps. Because it’s a team-based game (usually 6v6 or 5v5), fights are scrappy and involve trading resources (ultimates, cooldowns, objective progress, kills) to tip the match in your team’s favor. Finally, the ranked ladder fosters a sense of competition between players.
Overwatch scratches my itch for several types of fun—particularly sensation, fantasy, challenge, fellowship, and competition. It is one of the few games that can keep me glued to a screen for 24 hours straight. I think what I relish the most is reveling in the schadenfreude derived from completely dominating the enemy team by outplaying them with my abilities, being better than other players at my main hero, and coordinating with team members to win multiple fights in a row. It becomes very difficult for me to stop playing when I start, due in no small part to the way the art & sound design (making sense of the visual clutter when 10 people use their ultimates at once is so satisfying) enhance the core gameplay loop.
