Overwatch | Superior Realities

Right now my usually unshakeable Blizzard fandom is at an all time low. I played Blizzard games for the story, but Blizzard now seems to have given up on meaningful narrative for all of its games with the exception of World of Warcraft, whose plot is currently going off the rails on the lazy train.

Still, old habits die hard. I’m sure I’ll still be there watching the opening ceremonies live, and if I’m to keep that tradition alive, I might as well also do my traditional post of wishes and predictions for what’s ahead.

What I think will happen:

This is one of those weird BlizzCons where you wonder why they’re even holding the convention. It doesn’t seem likely that there will be any major announcements, and a relative lack of news panels on the schedule seem to back this conclusion. Maybe BlizzCon is just about the eSports now? It would track with the overall direction of the company lately.

There will be announcements, of course. I just don’t see any of them being big news.

WoW has already spilled all the beans on 8.1. We’ll probably get some info on 8.1.5 and a brief tease of 8.2, but big or detailed revelations are unlikely.

Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch will both inevitably announce one or two new heroes and/or maps, but that’s hardly news at this point. Similarly we can expect a new Hearthstone expansion, but again, those come out so often it’s hardly noteworthy these days.

StarCraft is a big question mark. There is a 45 minute “What’s Next” panel listed for StarCraft II on the schedule, so they must have something to announce, but I’m not sure what. A new co-op commander is the obvious answer, but we just got Tychus, and considering how long he took, I doubt we’ll see another for some months yet. A new co-op map is a possibility, but is that enough to fill up a 45 minute panel?

That does leave the elephant in the room, though: Diablo.

There has been a surprising amount of momentum building for Diablo lately. The announcement of the Book of Adria and a new comics series, as well as a bunch of new Diablo apparel bearing the tagline “Reign of Terror,” which does sound suspiciously like an expansion title, though we’ve been misled by things like this before.

Also, a Diablo “What’s Next” panel is scheduled for the main stage immediately after the opening ceremony, a timeslot normally reserved for whatever the biggest news to come out of the convention is.

I’ve been hoping for another expansion for Diablo III for years and been disappointed every time, so I refuse to get my hopes up again. A lot of people are jumping on the Diablo IV bandwagon, but given Blizzard’s, shall we say, stately pace of development, I think a whole new Diablo game this soon is all but impossible. I also think the announcement of an entire new game would call for more than two panels at the convention, but two is all Diablo is getting according to the current schedule.

There’s also been wild rumours of a Diablo Netflix series of all things, and while I think there’s a decent chance it may be announced at BlizzCon, I don’t see it filling up a “What’s Next” panel, which are always about new game updates.

Considering all that, I believe the most likely scenario is that we will see the announcement of another DLC for Diablo III, possibly alongside (maybe even tying into) the Netflix series. I expect a new class (probably druid or something similar), and maybe a small amount of new story or a new gameplay feature.

What I want to happen:

The trouble is most of the things I’d want to see at BlizzCon this year are so vanishingly unlikely it’s hardly worth mentioning them even as a wishlist.

I want WoW to announce an end to the subscription, Pathfinder achievements, and the Alliance/Horde conflict. I’d also like to see Vrykul, Forsaken High Elves, and Sargerai as playable Allied Races. And hey, might as well throw in that dark ranger class I’ve wanted forever while we’re at it. And bring back artifact weapons! And badges!

With blackjack! And hookers!

I want a single-player campaign and a permanent, repeatable co-op mode for Overwatch. A robust co-op mode for Heroes of the Storm would be pretty cool, too.

I’d like to see Selendis announced as the next co-op commander — this at least is somewhat within the realm of possibility — with a strong focus on air units, and the Planetcracker.

I’d also love more story DLC for StarCraft II. Again, ideally focusing on Selendis, though I’d also accept stories about Stukov or Talandar.

Most of all, I want a new expansion for Diablo III, with a full graphical overhaul to the Heroes of the Storm/SC2 engine, redemption for Leah’s soul, Imperius as a boss we can kill, a new class, and a final resolution to the Eternal Conflict.

But of all of those, Selendis in co-op is the only that seems even remotely feasible, unfortunately.

I’ve been having trouble finding anything I’m passionate about to play lately. I’ve tried a lot of different things, but none have stuck. Let’s work our way down the list, shall we?

Soulworker:

I started by continuing my tradition of trying new MMOs whenever I’m bored. First up was Korean import Soulworker, an instanced grinder in the vein of Vindictus.

Of all the games in this post, Soulworker impressed me the most. It’s actually got a lot going for it. The cel-shaded graphics, for instance, are gorgeous. Screenshots absolutely do not do justice to how vibrant the colours are, nor how fluid and full of personality the animations can be.

The combat’s great, too, and I found a character I quite enjoyed: a pale-haired, sword-wielding girl who bore a certain resemblance to my heroine from the Soulcleaver novels.

Most surprisingly, there’s clearly a lot of effort put into the story in Soulworker. The meta-plot is pretty rich and elaborate — if decidedly quirky in the way one would expect from an Eastern game — and the quest NPCs actually have a fair bit of personality. Each playable character also has their own backstory and style of conversation that influences the feel of the game.

However, Soulworker is crippled by two severe flaws.

One is that the people who cared about the story are the ones who wrote it back in Korea, not the ones who translated it into English. The voice-overs haven’t been translated at all, and the subtitles are incredibly awkward. You can still understand what’s going on, but the style of speech is so unnatural it rips you right out of the story.

The other is that it is incredibly grindy. I expected that to be the case going in, but even so, I was shocked by how little time it took for me to reach a point where I couldn’t even progress the story without repeating the same dungeons multiple times in order to level up. It stops being a game and starts becoming a chore very quickly.

It’s a shame. With a few rough edges smoothed out, this could have been a pretty good game.

Closers:

Next up was another action-heavy Eastern grinder, Closers.

Not gonna lie, guys, I managed maybe twenty minutes in this game before I couldn’t take it anymore.

Somehow I completely missed the fact going in that Closers is a side-scroller. Like, what the hell. I know side-scrolling MMOs aren’t unheard of, but that doesn’t make it a good idea.

The controls are spectacularly awkward, too. I managed to rebind everything into something semi-normal, but it never felt quite right.

Add to that more sloppy translations and one of the most unbearably obnoxious interfaces I’ve ever seen in a game, and you get a recipe for endless frustration.

I very rarely say things like this, but stay away from this game. Life is too short.

Getting what I paid for:

A few months ago, Ubisoft gave away a bunch of games — Watch_Dogs, Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, and World in Conflict — and it took me until now to play them all.

I was underwhelmed by them all. Watch_Dogs had something approaching an interesting story, and I enjoyed the music and ship piloting mechanics in Black Flag, but both suffered from an over-reliance on stealth, clunky controls, and a general feeling of dullness.

This was my first time playing an Assassin’s Creed game. I can’t say I was particularly encouraged to play more. Though in fairness I’ve never liked pirates in fiction. I don’t understand what people find so compelling about a bunch of rapey, scurvy-ridden sea-muggers.

As for World in Conflict, it was just kind of dull. There didn’t seem to be a lot need for micro, and there wasn’t much macro, either, and the story didn’t attract me at all. I’d love a good RTS, but I don’t think this is it.

Overwatch PvE:

Finally, Overwatch recently had another free weekend, and it coincided with a repeat of the two events that comprise all of the game’s story content to date: Uprising and Retribution. Naturally, I was eager to try that.

It was fun, but I’m still left a bit baffled as to Blizzard’s thought process here.

The thing is, these are basically two missions extracted from a campaign that doesn’t exist. Without that context, they can’t achieve much in terms of story-telling, but they’re also far too linear to make much sense as repeatable content. They’re not enough to fill the gap of story content, but they don’t work as grindable events, either.

Sometimes I really don’t understand why Overwatch is so successful.

* * *

I’m just glad Vampyr isn’t far off now.

Superior Realities

Tag Archives: Overwatch

BlizzCon 2018 Wishlist/Predictions

Gaming Round-Up: The Reject Pile

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