I don’t watch many Counter-Strike: Global Offensive professional matches or tournaments or whatever, but even I find Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov’s amazing one-shot kill during a recent CS:GO tourney incredible. In fact, even if you’ve never played CS:GO, it’s really something to see…assuming you can even see it! Ax1Le’s one-shot kill is so fast most folks watching missed just how cool it was when it first occurred.
Valve’s wildly popular tactical shooter CS:GO has been around for a while now first released all the way back in 2012. In the decade since, the game has only grown as Valve continues to update it year after year with new content. And for most of that decade, Valve’s shooter has been one of the most popular esport games around. While there exist many CS:GO tournaments, the most prestigious and popular are the Valve-sponsored Major Championships, aka the Majors, which pay out millions in prize money and are extremely popular online. And it was during the most recent Major event that Ax1Le pulled off his wild one-shot drop kill.
erw1ce / Valve
It went down yesterday, during a round-five match of the IEM Rio Major 2022 Challengers Stage on the Mirage map. CS:GO pro and Cloud9 team member Ax1Le was stalking around bombsite B as a terrorist. Suddenly, he spots two counter-terrorists and did what anyone else in that moment would do: leap out of a window and pull off an impressive, split-second one-shot kill with such a tiny margin of aim error that upon replay, it almost appears he’s shooting through the wall. Okay, maybe not something anyone would do…
The moment goes by so fast that initially the commentators weren’t really sure what just happened. But after the round ended, a slow-motion replay helped better show off just how incredible Ax1Le’s shot really was, and had both the commentators screaming “What!?” at the same time.
Sure, he died seconds after making that cool shot, but his team ended up winning that round of CS:GO, so it all sort of balances out in the end. And regardless of whether Cloud9 can make it to the finals—the tournament is still ongoing—he can always point to that incredible, one-of-a-kind shot and go, “That was me.”
Bungie, the studio behindDestiny 2 and the older Halo games, has a public service announcement for all of its PlayStation 5 guardians: Double check that you are actually playing the PS5 version of the game and not the PS4 version! Don’t feel bad if you are playing the wrong version though, Sony has done a terrible job with all of this stuff.
Destiny 2’s next-gen ports launched alongside the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S consoles back in 2020. While they weren’t new games, they were improved versions of the old-gen originals, with higher resolution and 60fps support. They even loaded faster and felt snappier overall than the PS4 or Xbox One versions. So most players made the free leap to the next-gen editions of Destiny 2, assuming they owned a next-gen machine. On Xbox this was easy. You just…downloaded Destiny 2 on your Xbox Series X and that was that. Over on the PlayStation 5, things aren’t as easy and it seems a “notable” number of Destiny players on Sony’s fancy new console are still, in 2022, actually playing the old PS4 port and not the fancier PS5 version of Bungie’s online shooter.
In its weekly blog post, This Week At Bungie, the studio included a small PSA about the situation, explaining that a “notable number of PS5 players” were not playing the next-gen port, but were stuck playing the older, slower PS4 version of Destiny 2. To remedy this, Bungie pointed users toward a specific webpage created by Sony to help explain how to download and install the right version of your specific game on PS5.
Read More:The PlayStation 5 Features Most People Forget About
While I’m sure this PSA will help some folks out, it’s yet another reminder of how Sony is far behind Microsoft and its Xbox Smart Delivery System. I and many others joked about Smart Delivery at the time. “What a silly buzzword! Who cares!” we said. Now, it’s become one of the best things about the Xbox ecosystem.
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On Xbox, I never think about this stuff. I just hit download and the correct version of the game installs on my machine and all the saves and everything just…work. On PS5, I have to dig around to install the correct version or in some cases, I have to install both games to transfer saves between them. It all feels like it’s held together with duct tape and doesn’t seem like a good way to handle any of this. It shouldn’t take six steps to play the right game on the right console!
And while this issue will become less and less of a problem as fewer and fewer games are released across both console generations, it makes me nervous about how all this will work on the inevitable PlayStation 6.
Meanwhile, for those still playing Destiny 2 on Xbox One or PS4, Bungie also shared the news that it’s shrinking the game’s memory footprint by compressing some textures. It offered up some comparison shots to show how little the textures are affected by the new system and it looks good. Anything to help make games smaller and more efficient sounds great to me!
Destiny 2’s annual spooky loot event is back and it’s a mess. Festival of the Lost went live yesterday riddled with issues from a bug that blocked quest progress to players being saddled with old, obsolete loot. It was not good, especially for an event that is mostly unchanged from the year prior, despite now sporting its own $10 mini-battle pass.
For the uninitiated, Festival of the Lost tasks players with donning Halloween masks, grinding old content for candy and spectral pages, and then spending the latter on special lost sector runs where they shoot giant alien pumpkin heads for time-limited loot. Depending on who you ask, it’s either a festive distraction or a soul crushing chore, but there were a number of reasons to look forward to it this year, including a new set of mech-inspired Gunadam-ass armor.
Any enthusiasm players had was immediately thwarted by a major bug that was gating progress and eating spectral pages. Unable to move forward in the questline, some players kept grinding hopelessly with nothing to show for it, while others waited patiently for a fix. Bungie finally did get the problem solved late last night. Unfortunately, the event’s opening day had already been sabotaged.
Things might have moved on from there, but this bug was far from the only frustrating thing about the event. Festival of the Lost still has an issue where if you kill the mini-bosses too quickly, the mission will grind to a halt leaving players to wait another couple of minutes before the final boss spawns. Players complained a lot about this issue in last year’s Festival of the Lost, so it’s unfortunate to see it back again.
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Then there’s the bugged loot. Festival of the Lost gear, including the new Mechabre sniper rifle, is supposed to drop with new perk options and an origin trait that gives players’ aiming speed bonuses when playing solo. Only, some players are reporting getting old versions of weapons with old perks and no origin trait, i.e. junk. For an event modeled after Halloween, it’s essentially the equivalent of getting rocks in your trick-or-treat bag.
One thing that is working, however, is the new event pass, a $10 add-on Bungie introduced specifically for seasonal activities with summer’s Solstice of Heroes update. Players can unlock a few rewards on the free track, or pay to unlock more with the premium version. Not many more, however, leaving some scratching their heads at why players should spend the same amount as an entire season costs on a handful of cosmetics.
“I wouldn’t mind shelling out for it if the eververse in general didn’t exist,” wrote one player on the subreddit. “It feels pretty crappy to have expansions, seasons, and dungeons all priced out and still having such a huge focus on the eververse.” As Forbes’ Paul Tassi points out, it’s especially tough to swallow when the event itself launches with so many underlying problems. Festival of the Lost is unchanged from last year in many ways, even as it’s become monetized with the additional battle pass.
It’s a shame, really, because there are plenty of things to be excited about otherwise. The Gundam armor kicks ass, and the new Mechabre sniper rifle sounds just like the one from the actual Gundam anime. Plus there’s the spectral horse sparrow. Everyone’s favorite quest giver from Bungie’s 30th Anniversary update has been turned into a wickedly awesome space broomstick and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Destiny 2’s big spooky event is just around the corner, and Bungie finally teased the new mech-inspired armor players will be chasing. Some people get Ultraman vibes. Others see Power Rangers. But I’m getting a big dose of Gundam, and I’m super pumped about it.
Festival of the Lost goes live on October 18, and while Bungie hasn’t revealed the full details on how this year’s version will work, it traditionally revolves around wearing masks, shooting haunted enemies, and collecting the space candy that falls out to trade in for festive goodies. Last year’s theme was dinosaurs, and it was…fine! This year, players voted for either mechs or monsters, and naturally mechs won (monsters, meanwhile, lost for the second year in a row).
The Gundam-ass armor will be available throughout Festival of the Lost. Hunters look cool, but the mech-theme clearly plays best with the bulky Titan aesthetic, so I will be dusting mine off after a couple seasons in storage. The event will also add a sniper rifle with a new origin perk called Search Party that buff’s aim and movement speed when you’re solo. There’s even a new Rhulk mask so everyone can dress up as their favorite Witness Disciple.
In the meantime, Bungie also announced some big and small changes coming to the rest of Destiny 2. Next week’s mid-season update will re-balance a bunch of weapons, including buffs to auto rifles and some very minor nerfs to a few other weapons like scout rifles. The Rangefinder perk is also getting tweaked and will see 20 percent less bonus aim-assist at long distances, while powerful exotics Jade Rabbit and No Time To Explain see their aim-assist reduced as well.
More importantly, Bungie revealed a big rework of its currency economy that will come in Season 19. Planetary Materials are going away and heroic public events will be the new hotspot for farming Glimmer. The idea is to reduce some of the noise on the inventory screen and make Destiny 2 more approachable for newcomers. While it’s the right move, I still think a much deeper overhaul is needed. Glimmer is also pretty useless at this point.
Yes, it’s required for certain gear upgrades and can also buy extra bounties to farm XP quicker, but it basically feels completely tangential to the rest of the experience, unlike Legendary Shards which are currently being depleted at alarming rates thanks to the expensive seasonal Umbral Engram focusing loop. Lightfall, and whatever other big changes it brings to Destiny 2, can’t come soon enough. For now, it’s almost Gundam time.
Last night, after many players found themselves unable to access a dozen or more members of their Overwatch 2 rosters, and following a week of non-stop issues, I saw angry fans demanding that Blizzard make it right by rewarding them for their wasted time. And Blizzard acknowledged just a couple of days ago that the developer knew the launch period for the hero shooter was “frustrating” for many. In an effort to ease these ongoing tensions, Blizzard has now issued both a status update and will be giving out some free goodies on top of that.
The developer continues to work on stabilizing the game, Blizzard says, and a patch for Overwatch 2 should be hitting sometime later this week. No specifics beyond that, but based on conversations I’ve had with other players, it seems that things like account merging, and connection issues continue to hurt the game. Some are even getting banned temporarily from ranked modes because of the disconnects, while others are seeing their games crash after getting achievements. And, as of this writing, characters like Torbjorn and Bastion still aren’t available in all Overwatch 2 modes as Blizzard tinkers with their bugged abilities. There’s a lot going on.
The game is in a much better place than before, of course, when it wasn’t even possible to log into the game at all. But the list of issues players have encountered since launch is impressive. Perhaps this is why Blizzard is feeling generous right now, compared to how stingy the general Overwatch 2 Battle Pass is.
Here’s Blizzard on what you can expect if you’ve logged into the game anytime between launch and October 25th:
We apologize for any issues players experienced around the game’s launch. To help make up for any lost time, we’re planning to run several Double Match XP weekends: we will confirm the specific dates for these soon. We’ll also be giving all players who log in from October 25 through to the end of Season One an all-new Cursed Captain Reaper Legendary skin and a Health Pack Weapon Charm. These items will become part of your collection from the first time you log in during that time window.
So if you log in and suddenly get bombarded with some gifts, this is why! Tough shit, anyone who doesn’t play Reaper. Let’s just hope nothing unfortunate happens this time. Making a live service game is no easy thing, and I don’t envy the developers who are likely pulling long nights right now. So far, though, it seems like any time Blizzard tries fixing something in Overwatch 2, something else gets borked. For now, though, take a peek at the health pack that you can use as a charm on your guns without having to drop any money on those microtransactions:
Overwatch 2 has not been having a good time. After undergoing two attacks by external parties that made it nearly impossible to play, the hero shooter came under fire for its bad cell phone policy. Then, many had issues trying to play Overwatch 2 with friends. Blizzard worked to ease these pains, axing the phone requirement outright and allowing more players to experience the sequel as the week went on, but not before some extended downtime on Thursday night. By Friday, fans had discovered a chat bug that randomly spent their real-world money on the shop. Now it’s the evening, and to kick the weekend off, Blizzard has another update.
In a new status update post, Blizzard expressed gratitude that fans have been “patient” through this entire saga, and while there are some welcome improvements now, the game’s larger status update is still kind of a mixed bag.
Effective immediately, console players who have a linked Battle.net account since June 9, 2021, along with any PC players with tied accounts, won’t need a cell phone, Blizzard announced in the status update. In an email, a Blizzard spokesperson clarified that totally new players to Overwatch 2, however, would need a phone number still, so the requirement isn’t totally gone.
While Blizzard says that it is making progress on things like account merging issues, along with players unable to access their purchased Watchpoint Pack on consoles, the developer states that some may still experience hiccups. There’s still a queue for the former problem, and in the case of the latter issue, PlayStation owners in particular may not see the product in their inventories. A fix is reportedly set to roll out later tonight. Some may still experience those pesky login issues, too, but Blizzard made it sound like this is now a much smaller stumbling block for the game.
Perhaps the most ironic bullet point in the status update is what has replaced the login issue. Here’s Blizzard, explaining how by improving one thing, players might now see a worse experience elsewhere:
Now that we’ve increased capacity and have a higher player concurrency, matchmaking systems are being affected, which means you may be seeing a wait before being placed in a match. We are changing configurations within this system today and hope to somewhat shorten that wait throughout the day. We will continue looking into the matchmaking queues through the weekend to identify any additional improvements we can make.
At least you can be inside the game while waiting, though.
Blizzard knows that fans might be frustrated after the week that’s just transpired In the send-off to this update, after thanking players and acknowledging that the game has undergone a tough launch, Blizzard wrote:
We deeply appreciate your patience and thank you for your support, and we are laser focused on improving the Overwatch 2 experience for all players.
For now, it seems as if Overwatch players will have to hang tight until next week to see more meaningful changes beyond the ones slated to hit the game later tonight.
Though Overwatch 2’s wait times have seemingly improved after maintenance on the game’s servers last night, you still might want to wait a bit if you’re looking for an entirely bug-free experience—especially if you don’t like bugs that might be spending premium currency on hero skins without your consent while using the in-game chat.
Though it’s not clear how common the issue is, it seems to have been hitting users since launch, if not earlier. The underlying issue appears to be that, while using the chat in a menu, the game keystrokes are still registered by the other menu options, meaning you could navigate your way to the store and end up buying a skin while you’re text chatting with friends. Posts about this on the game’s Bug Report forum go back to May, calling attention to it during the beta. Other posts have gone up since the game’s official release, and a rising post on Reddit is seeing others chime in with tales of their accounts also inadvertently buying premium hero skins.
Approaching 1,000 upvotes on Reddit, user Dracyoshi’s post lays out the issue directly. “I was chatting with some friends while browsing the hero gallery when the game unexpectedly began unlocking Junker Queen’s Plutonium skin,” they said. They go on to speculate that text typed into the chat is “occasionally misinterpreted by the game [as] an input for navigating the menu.”
Though they followed up with Blizzard support on the issue, there’s no indication that refunds or changes are on the way. Dracyoshi told Kotaku that, since posting, Blizzard still hasn’t resolved the issue and maintains that it won’t issue refunds for purchases made with in-game currency as far as this case is concerned.
Scrolling through the thread on Dracyoshi’s post reveals other players echoing the same issue. “My friend was a victim of this bug,” reads one comment, “accidentally purchased Kirkos legendary for 1900 credits while trying to chat.” “Oh my god this happened to me twice,” reads another, “I thought I was going crazy.”
For now, it seems like best practice is to follow Dracyoshi’s advice and not “use the in-game chat while in the hero gallery until it’s fixed.”
Thanks to a bunch of funny people, the most difficult aspect of Overwatch 2 right now is probably just getting into the damn game. But if you’re new to this franchise, what awaits is a whole suite of heroes with unique abilities that mesh together into a hectic first-person shooter in which teamwork is absolutely essential. Overwatch? More like Overwhelming. (Sorry.)
You might be apprehensive about diving in, asking whether or not you can really wrap your head around all these heroes, or if you can keep up on the field with veterans who go all the way back to the first game’s launch in 2016. But I can assure you that Overwatch is a very understandable game and you’ll be scoring victories before you know it.
These tips assume you know nothing about Overwatch and will give you some fundamentals going in. These will help point you in the right direction and will set you up to understand the sometimes-hectic nature of this game.
Each hero is a rabbit hole of tactics unto themselves, so let’s iron out the basics of who to choose and demystify this incredibly popular shooter.
Over a dozen heroes, but just three classes
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
First-timers get tossed into the First Time User Experience, which will limit the number of heroes you can play for the tutorial section and some of your first few PvP matches.
Don’t freak out too much when you have to choose among 15 different heroes you know nothing about. As the game will explain, all of these heroes slot into three classes, drawn from RPG lingo: Tanks, Damage, and Support. When looking at the hero selection screen before a match, you’ll note that the heroes are broken up into three columns representing these classes. You’ll also see an icon indicating which class a hero is: A shield is for Tanks; bullets are for Damage; and a plus/heal sign is for Support.
Tanks are there to soak up damage from enemies and keep their attention away from the more vulnerable Damage and Support characters. Your priority on the field should be distracting opposing forces and blocking incoming fire with your physical size and special abilities. You’re the anchor for your team.
Damage is all about, well, hitting them hard! Compared to the other two classes, you’ll fare better in a head-to-head showdown with another Damage hero. But if your team is working as it’s supposed to, you’ll be more of an opportunist, picking off the fools too busy dealing with the Tanks.
Support heroes heal and buff allies and sometimes debuff foes. Your primary goal is typically to keep your teammates’ health topped up, as well as provide buffs to things like movement speed or damage output. Try not to get the attention of your opponent’s Damage heroes or get caught in the crossfire. As a Support, wise use of your abilities on the field can prevent a skirmish from sliding too far toward your enemy’s favor.
Read More: Be Prepared For These 7 Big Overwatch 2 Gameplay Changes
If you’re starting out, I recommend cycling out of each class with a hero you’re drawn to each match. On the field, make choices based on the role of your class, not so much the unique abilities of your chosen hero just yet. Over time, you’ll learn how to use those specific abilities to better play your role.
Break those bad habits learned from other shooters
Many other shooters bake sprinting and aim-down-sights into your very reflexes. Unlearn that for Overwatch. Only Soldier: 76 can sprint like a Call of Duty character. Other heroes have additional movement options, but they’ll often be tied to a cooldown, so you want to be sure to save that for when you really need to pick up the pace or get the hell out of the way.
Outside of a handful of characters with scoped weapons, there really isn’t an aim-down-sights option, either. Right mouse or left trigger is usually reserved for a secondary fire or power of some kind.
Basically, if other shooters have trained you to sprint like a maniac or constantly aim your weapon, you’re most certainly going to have to unlearn that. Even heroes with more genre-familiar attributes like Soldier: 76 or Sojourn will require you to adapt in this way.
Find your main and practice, practice, practice
Now that we’ve divided up the many heroes of Overwatch into three broad categories, it’s a good idea to just pick one from each class and stick to them until you fully understand their strengths and weaknesses. With time, you should try everyone available to you so you can understand how to deal with those characters, but to start out, focus is good.
The goal here is to figure out who your mains are going to be, as well as which role you prefer. You may not always be able to choose your main hero in each match, but the lessons you learn with your early choices are going to become reference points for mastering the skills and abilities of other heroes.
If a hero confuses you at first, don’t be afraid to drop them for one you might be able to understand a bit more directly. Also, Overwatch is a game full of style and character, so while you’re new and haven’t yet digested the meta, go ahead and pick a character who speaks to you based on style and personality. Video games are about having fun after all.
If you’re coming from a more traditional shooter like Call of Duty, I recommend spending time with Soldier: 76. If you’re more comfortable with more modern, speedier shooters like Apex Legends, Sojourn’s fast slide (which can launch into a super-fun jump!) will likely be more familiar to you. Sojourn unlocks for free if you play during season one.
If you’re looking to jump into Support, Mercy isn’t a bad choice to start with, as you’ll be less tempted to engage in firefights. Her main “weapon” heals and buffs, and it can bend around corners, which is a reminder to keep your head down. Her automatic pistol is capable if you’re quick, but her abilities are very narrowly focused on filling that Support role.
D.Va isn’t a bad choice for a starting Tank, either. I find her to play a bit more closely to a standard shooter character than the other Tanks, and when her mech bites the dust, you can stay on the field while it recharges. D.Va is not one of the starting heroes, however. So you’ll need to play a minimum of two unranked matches to unlock her. (If you do playD.Va though, be sure to audibly say “stand by for titanfall” every time you recall the mech. And don’t you ever apologize for it.)
Figure out which role you enjoy filling the most, and within that role, which hero fits your playstyle the best.
Battle some bots, study your victories and defeats
If you’re a first-timer, you’ll have to go through the tutorial which, while helpful for the very basics, is likely to mirror so many other shooter tutorials that you might gloss over the details.
Battling AI, though, that’s where the (fun) learning really begins. While there is a practice range to romp around in, I recommend spending your first handful of matches battling AI alongside other players in the PvE mode found in training areas. Resist jumping into PvP matchmaking until the AI battles begin to feel boring. There are three AI difficulties to choose from, but start with casual. Trust me.
AI matches are an optimal opportunity to learn the basics of Overwatch 2’s different modes without the pressure of an actual PvP game. You can learn the maps, how different heroes function on the field, and other basics. Remember, you’re just fighting AI here, so it’s no big deal if you have to take a moment to hit F1 on PC to remind yourself what your hero’s abilities do. (The hero information overlay is not bound to a gamepad button by default.)
That said, the bots are no slouches. If your team isn’t working together, they will take advantage of that and quite possibly send you to a defeat. This can happen even on the easiest of the three AI difficulties.
You might feel a little humiliated if you lose to bots, but it’s actually a fantastic opportunity to study why you lost. Since you’re fighting AI, a loss is more likely due to poor teamwork than the opposing team’s innate talent.
Take a look at the makeup of your team and of the opposing side. How many Tanks are there? How many Damage dealers? Support? Was Support keeping everyone nice and healthy during the match? Was Damage failing to take out enough foes? Were the Tanks not acting as Tanks? As you start answering those questions, you’ll both learn the game better and understand what you need to do differently next time.
Ping stuff!
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
I typically kill all voice chat in a game, so it was delightful to see Overwatch 2 has a detailed ping system to communicate critical information to your team. It’s better to get used to using it sooner than later.
A generic “ping” is accessible with the middle mouse button on PC and the left d-pad on a controller. This will highlight to your teammates whatever you’re looking at, be it a landmark or a foe, with a prominent HUD indicator they can see through walls. Use that for calling out advancing enemies or sneaky Damage heroes looking for an opportunity to take out one of your comrades.
The first ping command you should dedicate to muscle memory beyond the standard one is calling for help. On PC you hold down the middle mouse and then pull downward to activate the “Need Help” ping. On gamepads you hold down the left d-pad, selecting the desired ping with the right thumbstick. If Support is doing their job, they’ll hopefully come by shortly.
Dedicate this to muscle memory. Call for help as you flee, when you’re near death, when things are getting chaotic, or if you’re just low on health and there aren’t any health packs nearby.
Learn to read the scoreboard
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Whether you’re pulling up the scoreboard to check in the heat of a match or reviewing the details of a game that’s just ended, the information there isn’t just for bragging rights: It’s a reflection of how well or poorly your team is doing. The scoreboard can tell you why you’re winning or losing.
Before you even look at the numbers, the first column will tell you the makeup of the teams, how many Tank, Damage, or Support heroes are on the field. Sometimes the answer to why one side is getting annihilated is found right there. As you develop a sense of each hero, you’ll get a better understanding of how balanced a team is.
Moving rightward, we have some familiar stats: E, A, and D stand for Eliminations, Assists, and Deaths, respectively. Deaths should be low across the board, while Eliminations should probably be highest for your Damage heroes. Assists should likely be high for Support or Tanks. If you’re losing, these might very much tell you why. Are the Damage heroes racking up Eliminations? Are Deaths too high across the board?
Moving over to the next three columns we have DMG for overall damage output, H for healing output, and MIT for total damage mitigated. Generally speaking, Damage heroes should have the highest DMG, Support’s H numbers should be high, and Tanks ought to have high MIT.
Reading this scoreboard and acting based on what it tells you is key to contributing to your team’s success.
Don’t die, be patient
This goes without saying, but you really should prioritize your life. Yes, you’ll respawn in a matter of seconds, but so many of Overwatch’s game modes are like one giant multiplayer arm wrestling match. And if you’re dead, that’s a few precious seconds where you don’t have an arm in the fight.
But if you do die and respawn, and essential members of your team are still on a respawn counter, hold on a moment before heading back out into battle. This is especially true if you’re playing Support. You want to stay alive for when your comrades respawn and rejoin you. If that means letting the enemy team hold the objective point a little bit longer or push the payload up a bit further, you’re going to be better off responding with your collective strength rather than individually.
Overwatch 2 is far more team-driven than your average first-person shooter. And being a great team player requires more than just learning your hero well enough. Timing and staying alive ensures that you have a team functioning as best as it can, regardless of who’s on the roster.
As a live-service, free-to-play game, Overwatch 2 is likely to see changes to the finer details over time. That said, there is a core, team-based FPS beating at its heart that relies on playing the right role at the right time. It can be a lot to understand all at once, but by drilling the basics, you’ll have a solid foundation to build on to carry you and your team to victory.
Blizzard just announced that the new (and widely leaked) ninja character Kiriko will be free for all Overwatch 2 players who already own a copy of the original Overwatch. While that seems like cause to celebrate, the controversial, free-to-play sequel’s move to lock access to most future characters behind a battle pass system has been less well received. In new comments being reported today, Blizzard leaders explained why they think the new system will ultimately prove acceptable.
“What we actually see in the data is that a majority of players in Overwatch have a majority of their play time on two or fewer heroes.“ Jon Spector, a VP of Overwatch, told assorted press during a media call. “And you can get to 99.9% of play time for a majority of our players with 12 or fewer heroes.”
So that’s the official line on why Blizzard feels justified transitioning from the original Overwatch’s model of giving every character to all players to a system that locks new heroes away behind a battle pass: Original Overwatch players didn’t play enough different characters, so they probably won’t miss them.
But there’s a bit of mixed messaging going on. The characters are still the core of how Blizzard is monetizing the new game. Overwatch’s general manager Walter Kong told the press at an event that, “Heroes are the single most engaging content that we have in the game…We want to be able to continually invest in this live game service. From the perspective of the business, this isn’t free.”
To be sure, there will be some starter freebies for both new and returning players. The new heroes Sojourn and Junker Queen will be free unlocks for all season one players, and the ninja support character Kiriko will be free to players who own the original Overwatch.. But new players who want to try Kiriko will either have to pay $10 for the premium battle pass or grind the free one all the way up to level 55. At least they’ll still be able to play all 32 characters from the original roster.
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Read More:Everything Shown During The Overwatch 2 ‘Reveal’ Event
Kiriko is a healer who can deal decent critical damage and support her allies in the midst of a shootout, and she’s been described as a “battle healer” for Genji mains. This hints at a major change in how Blizzard will be designing new heroes, in that it’s actively trying to prevent situations in which any one character can act as a “hard counter” to another.
“We’re trying to take some of those really hard rock, paper, scissors interactions out of the game, and [replace] them with more player choice,” game director Aaron Keller told Polygon. “We’ve buffed our support heroes to make them more survivable.”
While lessening how dependent Overwatch is on counters generally sounds like a positive move, locking an ever-increasing proportion of the hero roster behind battle pass tiers, free or premium alike, feels like a step backward for player choice.
Overwatch 2 will be released on October 4 this year.
The opening moments of Steelrising felt surprisingly doable and fun for a soulslike, a genre of game that often starts out with tough challenges and a “go figure it out” kinda vibe. But once I hit the second map, I encountered an enemy that made me reach for the game’s “Assist Mode.” You might think that flipping on an “Easy Mode” let me breeze through the rest of the game, mindlessly. But it didn’t. Far from it. The game remains hard, but there was room to learn with more patient pacing. With this mode turned on, the game isn’t constantly sending me back to a spawn area, drained of my experience points with time lost to loading screens. The mode offers variable difficulty options, so I can scale up to where the game wants me to be. Steelrising isn’t dethroning the masters of this genre. But it sure as hell is showing at least one way they can improve, and with a pretty cool aesthetic at that.
Steelrising is the latest title from French developer Spiders. It’s a soulslike where you play as Aegis, a clockwork “automat” who must do battle with other similar creations in a steampunky alternative history twist on the French revolution. The studio is known for narrative-focused RPGs such as 2016’s The Technomancer and 2019’s Greedfall.
Spiders’ previous games, while perhaps being generally similar to something like a Mass Effect, usually march to the beat of their own drum. With Steelrising, I initially wasn’t thrilled about seeing the studio chase the model of another game so closely, only to predictably fall shy of the incredibly strong standard FromSoftware has set in this genre over the years.
If you are a diehard Miayazaki fan who doesn’t have time for imitators, Steelrising isn’t likely to grab your attention. Despite an imaginative premise and some great character design with digestible RPG mechanics, there’s just something missing here. It also struggled to maintain 60 frames-per-second on PC for me, which made the experience feel rougher than it should. Yet, all the boxes have been checked: enemies are tough, you need to level up to meet their health and attack power, when you die you drop your XP, and return back to the last spawn point with all of the enemies having been refreshed, tasked with recovering your don’t-call-’em-souls. You’ll continue to unlock new shortcuts and ways of traversing the winding maps as you move forward. Ya get the picture.
But the “Assist Mode” is where it is worthy of note and conversation.
Gif: Spiders / Nacon / Kotaku
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This mode is a set of options that lets you change a variety of the game’s functions. You can modulate the damage you take, scaling it down to 0% if you desire (you’ll still take fall damage though). You can also choose to keep your XP when you die, adjust your stamina regeneration rate, and affect the “cooling” timer you’ll get when you perform too many actions in a row. If any soulslike is to consider adding difficulty options, Steelrising is a clear model of how to do this.
Those who bristle at the notion of easing the difficulty of a soulslike are likely worried that the core experience risks being diluted or lost, or simply misses the point of the genre. Many might worry that it’s the virtual equivalent of removing guns from a shooter or jumping from a platformer. But Steelrising’s Assist Mode doesn’t pull you away from the core gameplay. Rather, it lets you get a different perspective on it so you can actually get better at the core skills of attacking and dodging and potentially learn how leveling up can change those dynamics.
The option I found the most use of was to reduce the damage to 0%. This meant that the first enemy that truly gave me some troubles, an automat that flings giant steel balls around on chains connected to its arms, could teach me its movesets instead of just beat the shit out of me and forcing me to restart every time I failed. It went from being a giant asshole to a sparring partner.
It still knocked me on my ass every single time. But I could get up and say “okay, when it moves like this, I’ve got to get out of the way.” I learned where the openings were, how quick I should be in pressing my attack. I was able to bake a muscle memory into my response to this kind of enemy, and I didn’t have to go allllll the wayyy back to the damn spawn point and face allll the daaaamn enemiess agaaaaain to learn that. I would love there to be a “fake health bar” so I could get a sense of how much damage they do to know “well, I would’ve died at this point.” Assist Mode helped me understand the language of the game, and has prepared me for when I’m ready to take those training wheels off, take down these foes, and feel accomplished in how I’ve gotten better.
Screenshot: Spiders / Nacon / Kotaku
The other difficulty options can also adjust what kind of game this is. Having XP stay with you means death plays a different role in the game. Stamina regeneration can make the game feel a bit quicker. Granted, when you turn on any of these features, there are certain achievements you can’t unlock. But that’s fine! In fact, it really does preserve the crushing difficulty the devs were aiming for. It makes playing the game the way it was designed as something you could aspire to, not be punished so often for failing to meet its demands.
I enjoy challenges and difficult experiences in video games and elsewhere. I like to see my own improvement in the things I find interest in. But soulslikes have, far too often, been too punishing of a teacher for me. And as someone who struggles with my mental health and has to fight off enough real demons when something is frustrating, soulslikes have remained something that feels too unkind to me. I’m just less likely to engage with them. I want to experience the thrill of beating these games, the accomplishment of having mastered something. I just need to prioritize my personal cooldown timer for things in life that will never have a difficulty slider. Steelrising proves that a game can do this while still being quite hard.
“Assist Mode” didn’t simply make the game easier. It was a helping hand that reframed the frenetic action to say, “hey, you can actually do this. And here’s how.” Games need more of this.