Overwatch
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Blizzard releases Overwatch voice line clothing collection
Olivia Richman
The Overwatch League may be baffling fans with its strange merch, but at least fans are getting opportunities to represent the game in style. Blizzard has dropped a new voice line-themed clothing collection. The clothing features iconic voice lines from seven fan-favorite heroes. The first featured item from the new clothing line has D.Va displayed on a hoodie. If you look closely, the cartoon rendering of the Korean superstar is made …
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Overwatch League hero tier list going into Stage 3 of the OWL
Olivia Richman
Going in Stage 3 of the Overwatch League’s second season, fans are still holding out hope that come June 7 GOATS won’t still be dominating the pro scene. Comprised of three tanks and three supports, the dominant meta composition has all but taken over the Overwatch League, which many people speculate is the main reason that the league’s viewership continues to decline. Overwatch League teams that thrive off of their DPS …
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Overwatch League collabs with Fanatics for confusing new apparel
Olivia Richman
Overwatch League’s newest official merch has the gaming community going, “What does this even mean?” The OWL has released a new line of official apparel through their continued partnership with Fanantics. The shirts start off normal enough with a team logo. But upon closer inspection, fans noticed that the accompanying text is a little confusing. The Washington Justice’s shirt reads, “Washington DC. [Hidden text] capital of the United States. Center …
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Overwatch Anniversary skins arrive for Winston, Mei, and more
Fariha Bhatti
The latest update to Overwatch has begun the latest Anniversary event for 2019, celebrating the third birthday of Overwatch. Event Brawls from all previous seasonal events are available to play during the Anniversary event, and all seasonal skins have temporarily been unlocked for purchase. This year, a total of 11 new skins have been introduced for the event. This is up from the standard of nine that has been seen …
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Shanghai Dragons player Geguri named to Time Magazine leadership list
Fariha Bhatti
Shanghai Dragons player Kim “Geguri” Se-yeon has been awarded a position in Time Magazine’s latest “Next Generation Leader” list. Along with the honor, the weekly magazine published a two-page feature on the player, detailing her rise to fame as the only female player in the Overwatch League. The feature alongside the award details Geguri’s early gaming career and how she first began playing Overwatch. According to Time Magazine, Geguri first …
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Overwatch Anniversary event brings returning modes, legendary skins
Fariha Bhatti
Blizzard has announced the start date for the next seasonal event for Overwatch, along with the first of the new upcoming legendary skins. The event celebrates the birthday of the game and is aptly named Overwatch Anniversary 2019. The starting date of May 21 was announced across social media on Saturday with a short six-second video featuring the phrase “You’re invited!” As with previous Anniversary events, players can expect to …
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Overwatch League Stage 2 finals broke broadcasting record
Olivia Richman
The San Francisco Shock and Vancouver Titans rematch this past weekend proved popular with Overwatch League viewers. The final match between the Shock and the Titans set the record for the best performing esports broadcast on ABC. The Stage 2 playoffs week had a global average minute audience (AMA) of 545,000. That’s the average number of people watching the broadcast at any minute during the show. For an idea of how …
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Report states that 2-2-2 role lock not yet coming to OWL for Stage 3
Fariha Bhatti
The Overwatch League has supposedly told all 20 of its teams that the rumoured 2-2-2 role lock will not be implemented for Stage 3 of the 2019 competition. The information was brought to light by esports blogger Arran “Halo” Brown, though he could not name his sources from within the League. Halo, also known by his blog name and Twitter handle HaloofThoughts, revealed the information this week on his blog. …
Overwatch League fans can collect trading cards at OWL All-Star Game
Olivia Richman
News
Overwatch League fans will soon be able to collect and trade digital cards featuring their favorite pro players. Activision Blizzard has agreed to a deal with The Upper Deck Company to produce trading cards based on the Overwatch League. The multi-year deal includes trading cards through Upper Deck’s digital e-Pack platform. This is an online program that lets users buy and open packs, as well as trade cards with other …
Major mishap as OWL shows serial killers in Mother’s Day tribute
Olivia Richman
News
The Overwatch League Stage 2 playoff finals took place on Mother’s Day, which resulted in a lot of wholesome content. In honor of Mother’s Day, the San Francisco Shock and Vancouver Titans players had their mothers backstage. They also had a chance to share how proud they were with their sons on the live broadcast, and talk about how new of an experience esports is to each of them. The …
San Francisco Shock defeat Vancouver Titans in Stage 2 playoff final
Olivia Richman
News
The San Francisco Shock are the Stage 2 champions. The Bay Area team defeated the Vancouver Titans in an intense Stage 2 finals that resulted in the Titan’s first ever loss in the Overwatch League to date. As the Shock jumped around on stage, hugging behind a stream of orange and white confetti, Titan’s star player Sang-beom “Bumper” Park could be seen holding his head in his hands. The two …
Los Angeles Valiant acquire three players from Florida Mayhem
Olivia Richman
News
The Los Angeles Valiant are changing up their roster yet again. This time, the Valiant struck a deal with Florida Mayhem, trading Valiant main tank Koo “Fate” Pan-seung in exchange for three players. Mayhem off-tank Caleb “McGravy” McGarvey is heading to the Valiant, along with two playrs from Mayhem Academy: main tank Russell “FCTFCTN” Campbell and DPS Johannes “Shax” Nielsen. “We’ve got some big news 7’s. Give a huge #Valla …
NRG Esports pulls out of Contenders as another legacy org leaves OW
William Davis
News
One of the oldest names in competitive Overwatch is completely out of the game, as NRG Esports has pulled its Contenders roster, leaving the San Francisco Shock as the last remaining organization with ties to NRG. Established in 2016, the original NRG roster featured several fan favorites from over the years. These included Brandon “Seagull” Larend, Andre “IDDQD” Dahlstrom, Anthony “harbleu” Ballo, and Kim “Rascal” Dong-jun. NRG was one of …
Blizzard makes official the OWL finals coming to Philadelphia
gabhernandez
News
Blizzard has officially announced that the Overwatch League Grand Finals will be held in Philadelphia at the Wells Fargo Center on September 29. The news was previously reported by Rod Breslau of ESPN before being confirmed in an official post on the Overwatch League website. In its inaugural season, the Overwatch League Grand Finals were first held in Brooklyn, New York over the course of two days. Because of the …
Overwatch League views continue to decline going into playoffs
Olivia Richman
News
The final matches leading up to the Stage 2 playoffs this past week saw a decline in Twitch views compared to last year’s comparable week of Overwatch League matches. The two matches on Thursday averaged 85,000 concurrent viewers on Twich, and the four matches on Friday saw an average of 104K viewers. Saturday and Sunday games reached 130K concurrents. Thursday’s average views were around 108K last year. Friday rocketed to …
Dallas Fuel sign new tank player Trill ahead of OWL Stage 3
Olivia Richman
News
The Dallas Fuel have promoted Ashley “Trill” Powell from the organization’s North American Contenders roster. The DPS main will next be competing in Stage 3 of the Overwatch League. “After consistent scrims with the Dallas Fuel and an impressive performance in Overwatch Contenders, Trill is ready to burn blue,” said the official announcement. The Dallas Fuel outlined Trill’s journey to the Overwatch League. Trill started competing in early Overwatch tournaments …
San Francisco Shock finish historic run with win over Shanghai
Steven Rondina
News
The San Francisco Shock have pulled off something truly impressive. After taking a 4-0 win over the Shanghai Dragons, the Shock notched a perfect 7-0 record in stage two of the Overwatch League regular season. Far more impressively, the victory capped an immaculate 28-0-0 run for the team in which they didn’t lose a single map. This is even more impressive given that stage two saw a major transition for …
Jeff Kaplan wishes he could retire Total Mayhem from OW Arcade mode
Olivia Richman
News
Overwatch lead designer Jeff Kaplan is ashamed of his creation. A few days ago, one player took to the Overwatch forums to ask, “What does Jeff Kaplan have against Mayhem and No Limits?” The Overwatch fan said he usually plays arcade mode to “avoid losing friends in comp.” But he’s noticed that 1v1 Elimination is an arcade option “three to four times in on week” despite his observation that no …
First five slots in franchised Call of Duty league sold to OWL owners
Steven Rondina
News
The first permanent franchises for the upcoming Call of Duty league have been announced. According to a statement by Activision-Blizzard, franchises for the cities of New York, Paris, Atlanta, Dallas, and Toronto have been sold. The slots have been awarded to the ownership groups of corresponding Overwatch League teams. “The upcoming launch of our new Call of Duty esports league reaffirms our leadership role in the development of professional esports,” …
Boston Uprising owner Robert Kraft ordered to appear in court
Olivia Richman
News
Boston Uprising’s owner Robert Kraft is not getting special treatment in his sex solicitation case. A Florida judge has ordered the billionaire to appear at a May 21 hearing that will conclude three days of deliberation over the admissibility of the videos that captured Kraft allegedly receiving sexual favors from sex trafficking victims at the Orchids of Asia Day Spa. Kraft’s arrest was part of a months-long investigation by …
Overwatch has become a mainstay in competitive gaming, though the Blizzard creation hasn’t always had a smooth road to travel. From massive peaks of success to major controversies and dips in popularity, the Overwatch franchise has proved resilient, still playing host to legions of players and fans.
Along the way, the game served as host to one of the most ambitious projects in the growing history of esports, and saw the release of a sequel that changed in form and function multiple times before finally releasing to the public.
What is Overwatch?
Overwatch is a prototypical “hero shooter,” a game that combines first-person shooting gameplay with heroic abilities that are unique to each of the game’s diverse cast of characters. One character might swing a giant hammer and wield a protective shield behind which teammate can take cover, while another might zip around the game’s world with twin guns blazing, warping time and space at will.
That variety of characters and playing styles is a big reason for Overwatch’s success. When no two characters play exactly alike, the sheer variety available in the game becomes a draw. Throw in colorful visuals, dynamic and responsive gameplay, and action-packed battles between teams of opposing players all combining their different abilities together, and you can begin to understand the popularity of Overwatch.
When developers at Blizzard first released Overwatch, there was nothing else quite like it. The closest any major release had come was likely Team Fortress 2, which also featured teams of opposing characters wielding varied abilities in prolonged battles. But Overwatch leaned even further into the unique qualities of its characters, including their presentation. Across PCs and consoles alike, the game proved to be a sensation upon its 2016 release.
What happened to the Overwatch League?
Originally founded in 2017, the Overwatch League was meant to serve as a long-term competitive hub for the game’s professional teams and players prior to its official shutdown in 2024. The league was created with big ambitions in mind, as Blizzard, by then partnered with massive publisher Activision, planned to seed local teams in a variety of cities spread across the world. The idea was to emulate traditional professional sports by rooting pro teams in certain cities and regions in the hopes of cultivating local fan followings.
This was a big change compared what had become the standard in esports, with esports organizations representing themselves to their fans regardless of region. At most, broad regions such as North America or Europe were most often marketed to by individual teams. To hone that in on a specific city was a significant change.
Activision-Blizzard also took the step of making pro Overwatch a closed system; that is, high-level tournaments were broadly restricted outside of official OWL events. While this exclusivity offered theoretical opportunity for the OWL through scarcity, it was also a different approach relevant to the established norm in esports, which traditionally saw smaller grass-roots events feed into a game’s highest levels as tournaments gradually scaled up in prominence and prize offerings.
Demanding tens of millions of dollars from investors who sought to own an OWL team and signing big-money exclusive broadcast deals with streaming platforms, the OWL got itself off to a hot start. But concerns over flagging viewership and overall revenue struggles persisted as the league marched forward. Its intended model proved unsustainable, and the league was eventually shut down.
Do people still play Overwatch?
Despite the fate of OWL, Overwatch remains broadly popular in its current form: Overwatch 2. The game remains under active development at Activision-Blizzard, regularly receiving new in-game events and more unique heroes with special abilities that allow the game to be played in different ways.
The release of Overwatch 2 was itself not without some controversy, as Blizzard’s plans for its contents changed and shifted through the sequel’s development cycle, and the final version of OW2 released as more of a continuation of the original game than a distinctly different sequel. But that continuation still preserved the gameplay and overall experience so many players had come to love about OW. For them, getting more of the same ultimately was not an issue.
