On May 24, the creators of the World of Warcraft phenomenon, Blizzard Entertainment dropped their first new IP in 17 years, Overwatch. While Blizzard's other franchises, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Starcraft, and Diablo, have all been well polished games boasting high levels of success, none have seemed to stand up to the popularity of World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft grew from a fun MMO into a cultural phenomenon, with a player base of almost 12.5 million people in 2010, and references in popular shows like "South Park" and "How I Met Your Mother." Recently however, World of subscriber numbers have been slipping, and Blizzard seems to be looking to Overwatch to bring the company back into the mainstream.
This is a heavy burden for young Overwatch to carry, but since its release my friends and I have put in over 250 hours between the seven of us (35 of which are mine), and I can assure you that it is a ton of fun. At its core, the game is a team based FPS with some MOBA-style objective play and character abilities thrown in. The cast of characters is rich in personality and diverse in every sense of the word, allowing for an unprecedented amount of accessibility for their fan base to relate to. Where Overwatch comes into its own is its incredible creative level design. The characters are a joy, but the level design and the way different characters utilize terrain makes even simply walking around fun, an impressive feat for any game. Overall, the game play is fast, the mechanics are fun and interesting, and the replay value is tremendous. But a 10/10 game does not make a cultural phenomenon on the level of World of Warcraft.
A recent game that broke into the realm of mega-popularity was Riot Games' League of Legends, which has boasted some of the largest game communities and amounts of active players in history. League has a similar appeal to Overwatch, with an enormous cast of relatable characters and a huge replay value. But what made League special was the continuous updating, re-balancing, and addition of new content that has kept the game fresh over several years. People flocked to the game, and then made their own content like cosplays, fan art, comic strips, and so much more that made the game feel alive. It was this sense of activity and community that I think made League so popular, and Riot was quick to reinforce it with a competitive scene that had huge tournaments across the globe and its own celebrities. Even low-ranked players like myself felt like they could be the next star if they could climb the ladder into Challenger or Master tier and be recruited by a team. The game reinforced friendships, built new ones, and made dreams.
With this in mind, Blizzard can learn a great deal from Riot Games to make their game have long term viability as both a game and cultural phenomenon. Even in less than a month, through numerous sources like Facebook and Deviantart, Overwatch has generated a massive amount of fan created content that reminded me of the early days of League of Legends. Blizzard has already followed shortly after the game's release to balance characters who were seen to be too strong and weaker characters that apparently needed improvement. But they have to compete for time with games like League that still release content frequently, with a new hero or event every few months. I think Blizzard must follow suit and use every available resource to generate new maps, heroes, and cosmetic content if they want to see their game stay at the heights it is already achieving. I for one will be sticking around to see all the new things that Blizzard has in store for us; then maybe they can return to the popularity that World of Warcraft garnered.
