A Soap Opera Is Exactly What Overwatch 2 Needed

There’s a moment in the second of Overwatch 2’s three new PvE maps that really sticks out. It’s the kind of moment that hadn’t happened in the seven years since the first Overwatch came out, and it’s exactly what the game has needed this whole time. Minor spoilers if you haven’t played the mission yet.

Roughly halfway into the Liberation mission, you and your four allies, along with an omnic NPC you’re escorting, crowd into a subway car. As the car slowly pulls into a station, another omnic character starts slamming his hands against the window, begging you to open the door. You can’t.

It’s too slow and too late. You and your team have to sit and watch as a new enemy unit, the Subjugator, grabs him, latches onto his head, and then leaves him lifeless on the ground with strange new plugs sticking out of his metal skull. It’s horrifying to watch, and before you can reckon with it, you have to move on to the next battle.

It’s the type of mini in-game cutscene that’s pretty normal for most single-player games but hard to pull off in a fast-paced PvP game like Overwatch. That is disappointing, because one of the game’s strongest traits is its vibrant and engaging characters. It’s no wonder players were unhappy to learn that the game’s PvE plans were scaled back.

And yet, after playing through the three missions in Overwatch 2: Invasion, I feel like I can see a glimmer of a future in which Overwatch finally lives up to its potential. And the cuts Blizzard made might actually be for the best.

If you go back and watch early look demos of the planned Overwatch 2 PvE content from 2019, it’s easy to compare it to the version players got in 2023 and see what’s changed. The map, the characters, and the cutscenes are still largely intact. But the gameplay is drastically different.