I Simply ADORE The Way This Artist Draws Them

Basically, F u Blizzard >:(

So, let me see if I've got this straight.

When Overwatch 2 launched last October, it was framed by Blizzard as a PvP-only early access preview of a game which would eventually include a substantial PvE campaign, to be added in a later patch.

Today, Blizzard's representatives admitted not only that the PvE campaign mode has been scrapped, but that the internal decision to do so was made in late 2021 – meaning they'd been knowingly lying about the game's planned feature set for nearly a year at the time of the October 2022 early access launch.

Is that about the size of it?

Healer Gripe -

When a Tank or DPS runs around a corner, away from you or out of your line of sight, and you desperately try to keep up with them and not die. Then when they inevitably die, they SPAM THANKS.

Like sir, please use your brain and stop blaming me...

Satisfying Sombra pick :)

The Archives event Storm Rising - Part 3

The third Archives event took place in 2019, it started on April 16th and finished on May 6th.

May I present to you, all the cinematics for the new brawl that was introduced in this event, Storm Rising:

Not only is this cinematic absolutely amazing, but it also introduces us to two well known characters for the first time, Sojourn and Ramantra.

The brawl itself follows an Overwatch mission, with the agents, Tracer, Winston, Genji and Mercy as the playable cast. The mission is to apprehend a talon executive, Maximillian. They chase him throughout the map of Havana, which was also introduced at the same time as this brawl.

We also got some banger skins during this event:

I religiously use Deadlock McCree, Talon Baptiste and Formal Soldier, like they are my religion. They're just amazing skins. Socialite Ashe and Scientist Moira are also great skins and I use them regularly.

I find it quiet easy to forget the point of the posts I'm writing at the time, so before I forget, let's just compare how many legendries that is when put alongside the last two events. So, in this 2019 event, we got 5 great skins, in the 2018 event we got 7 legendries, and in the 2017 event we got another 7. There's a little bit of a decline, but I don't really think it's dramatic. The skins we got in the 2019 event are a lot better quality than the 2017 skins and some 2018 skins as well. So, so far, they're keeping up on that.

All in all, 2019 was a brilliant Achieves event, with great skins, a new map, new characters introduced and a new brawl. I'd say we were fed pretty great that year.

How I feel after every defeat :(

Props to Tom Beansons for going the extra mile and getting coffee making hands 😚

A Breakdown of all the Overwatch Anniversary events so far.

I'm in the mood to write lengthy paragraphs examining OW2 today, so let's go for it.

Just to clarify, my first Anniversary event was 2018, so I have just a wee bit of experience playing these events. Unfortunately, I didn't have the pleasant experience of playing the first anniversary event in 2017.

But, it's as good as any place to start, so what exactly did we get in the 2017 anniversary event.

Three new area maps were added, which I'm sure most of you are familiar with. They were Castillo, Black Forest, and Necropolis.

Not only that, but NINE FREE legendary skins were added during the limited time event, that anybody could pick up through loot boxes.

Not just that though, there were over a hundred unlockable items also released during that limited time. Ranging from skins that were lower than legendary, to player icons, to sprays, to voice lines, to emotes, highlight intros, and victory poses.

The 2017 Anniversary event was also the event that introduced dance emotes, which I'm fairly sure you just have to plainly buy no, but don't quote me on that.

WELL

Moving onto 2018

A new death map was released on the 2018 Anniversary event called Petra. Honestly, it blows my mind that Petra came out five years ago now. I remember logging on, and loading up deathmatch and getting lost out of my mind on this new map.

They released 8 legendary skins

and 3 epic skins

Including Lightning Tracer. Man, I remember just how much people hated this skin, claimed it was the ugliest skin ever made.

Personally, I think there are more than a handful that can rival it nowadays.

The 2018 event also introduced being able to buy past event items for all the events, not just anniversary.

Now that I've summarised all the wonderful gifts 2018 gave us, let's hurry on over to 2019.

This year, unfortunately, they did not release any new maps, (that doesn't mean they didn't realise new maps during the year, they just didn't release maps during the anniversary event).

But, they introduced another reel of awesome legendary skins. Except, there was only 6 this year.

Don't get me wrong. I love almost (egg head Pharah is the exception) and I physically screamed when I pulled Academy D. Va.

But, the delice shows when you compare things side by side.

No new map, and 3 fewer legendary skins.

Here are the epic skins as well, nothing special really though what can you say really.

Although, let me put it out there. I am not complaining. I got to play and earn all these skins for free and it was an absolute privilege that I did. I'm just pointing out the differences as the events progress.

2019 was also the first year to introduce legendary loot boxes for logging in. It was free and guaranteed one or more legendary. I'll just put it out there now, I absolutely adored these loot boxes. They were always the highlight of my game time when one came sliding quietly into my loot box tab.

Next up, 2020.

Now, looking at all of these event trailers together, I've released Blizzard made a very particular choice when displaying the legendary skins this year. Notice in the previous years they're usually grouped together and displayed like that? Well, not this year, because there's only 5 new legendary skins.

By displaying each skin induvial and using a highlight intro, it gives the impression there are just as many skins as usual. Very clever Blizzard, I'll give you that.

So far, we've gone from 11 legendary skins in 2017, to 5 in 2020. That number fell dramatically quickly.

2020 was also the first year to introduce the weekly challenges that became ever present in OW1 events.

None of them are really anything special. I remember being fond of the Widow one because of the gold highlights, but I also disliked the Sigma and the McCree ones because their eyes were covered.

Not much else to say really about 2019, the legendries are classics and it was the first anniversary event to use the weekly challenges, but that's it really.

2021 is where I really start to get pissed of at Blizzard.

Remember how I said before that showing of each skin specifically in their highlight intro was a cheap way of making it look like there's more content than there actually is? Well, it get's worse. At least in 2019 they specified that these were new skins.

In 2021, they just roll out the dance cutscene and introduce the new skins without saying they're introducing them, and combining skins from old events into the background. Maybe because it's late when I'm writing this, or maybe because I'm so used to seeing these skins in game, but I had to actually google a list of what skins came out in 2021 because I couldn't figure out the new ones from the old ones.

Anyways, I figured out which are the new ones, and here are your... five skins.

I won't lie. I'm not really a big a fan off... any of these. I suppose Funky Baptiste would be the best, but personally, the quality of the skins declined so dramatically. You can sort of already see it happening in 2019, but I don't think the delice is too noticeable until 2021.

But maybe that's just my personal preference.

These were the weekly challenges, and honestly, I love Tux Hammy. It's just so classically cute. The vibrant Echo is definitly a look too, just maybe not mine.

This is the bit where it gets a bit... trickier.

I'm going to have to make a second post because you can't post more than 30 pictures per post.

Gabriel Reyes <3

That's it. That's the post.

The Decline of the Anniversary Events, Part 2

2022 didn't actually have a singular anniversary event, per say.

It experienced a series of Re-mix events, the first one being in April instead of the archives event.

Personally, this really pissed me off at the time. The achieves event is my absolute fave event, and it also always happens on my Birthday. It was something I looked forward to, and then they just... stopped doing the event. No explanation. Nothing.

Instead they gave us this 'you can copy my homework, but change it slightly so no one knows' event collection.

Literally nobody asked for this. Nobody. They're not original skins just crappier versions of the originals. I'll put the originals below so you can see what I mean.

Personally, I think the originals are much better than the re-mixes. What makes it worse in my opinion though, it that some skins they chose to re-mix already had two colour variants. So, they end up giving one skin, THREE different colour pallets.

I also hate how they white wash all the colour from the originals skins in this re-mix event.

So, not only have we not gotten any original skins, they're not even amazing recolours either. There aren't any suitable changes, just a colour pallet wash. So lazy.

And before anyone says, it's because they were busy with OW2, busy doing what? OW2 feels like it has less content than OW1 and the only visible differences are the UI and the missing second tank.

To make this event even worse, they recycled special event challenges for the weekly challenges.

As a long time player, I already had all of these, and the only new content I got were a few sprays.

Needless to say, I was livid.

The re-release of these skins was so badly executed. It was completely unfair to any player who already had these skins and Blizzard didn't even try very hard to provide new content.

Just remembering it now makes me feel petty.

The next Re-mix happened mid next month and lasted until June.

Once again they just released re-mixed skins, but worse this time.

These were the re-mixed skins, now I'll show you the originals.

What makes these ones worse in my opinions, aside from the horrible colour schemes, is that fact that they chose two skins that already had two colour pallets. There are so, so, so, many skins in the game, why chose two more that already have a twin skin?!

Then once again they 're-wind' or recycle (as I like to call it) previous special events.

Like I love the Mercy and Sigma skin, but please Blizzard I unlocked them when they came out.

I understand you want the newer players to have a chance to unlock them, but please, please, please, reward us consistent players with something new.

I ran out of picture space again, so now there's gotta be a part 3 lol

Why do they make these challenges so ridiculously long for crappy rewards?