In phrases of scores, Overwatch 2 couldn’t have launched at a worse time on Steam. The hero shooter’s on-line status was in the bathroom after Blizzard spent years speaking up all of the cool PvE and marketing campaign missions the sequel would have, solely to ship a fraction of them extraordinarily late and finally cancel the remaining. So when the free-to-play sport lastly got here to Steam in August 2023, it was summarily dunked on with tens of 1000’s of detrimental opinions. In 2025, Overwatch 2 rests at an “Overwhelmingly detrimental” Steam score with over 300,000 opinions.
Here’s some excellent news: For the primary time since its Steam debut, its “Recent opinions” score, which solely tracks opinions within the final 30 days, is at “Mixed.” That’s because of an inflow of fine vibes after this week’s Season 15 replace, which introduced the largest shakeup to Overwatch 2 since 5v5 with hero perks.
“Overwatch 2 lastly launched,” wrote person delulu in a optimistic assessment.
“I give up final summer season however S15 is definitely actually enjoyable, and I admire the dangerous strategy they took,” wrote person Melina in a optimistic assessment immediately. “It’s a very good time to get in Overwatch proper now, so I extremely advocate giving it a attempt!”
“If that is desperation, I’m all for it!!!!!! Let’s go competitors,” wrote person Skriblyb in a optimistic assessment, presumably citing the rise of Marvel Rivals as motivation for Blizzard taking greater swings with Overwatch.
User Devorp provided a much less gracious learn of Blizzard’s new rivalry in a detrimental assessment: “Devs ignore this sport with no updates or balances they usually solely do one thing when Rivals is taking all of their customers.”
That’s not solely correct: Blizzard says it was cooking up its huge perks replace, which added 168 new upgrades to its 40+ hero roster in a single day, lengthy earlier than Marvel Rivals arrived with a bang in December. Another gargantuan replace arriving subsequent season, Stadium, has been in improvement for over a 12 months. That doesn’t suggest Blizzard is not feeling the strain of one other in style hero shooter on the block, nevertheless it’s extra doubtless {that a} steadily declining curiosity in Overwatch drove these bigger modifications within the first place. Rivals is undeniably an accelerant.
I observed lots of Overwatch’s newest optimistic opinions come from Steam accounts with solely a handful of hours performed, suggesting some are Battle.internet gamers who booted the sport on Steam so they might depart a optimistic assessment—the inverse of what occurred when Overwatch 2 launched on Steam and garnered over 50,000 detrimental opinions in 24 hours.
It’s far too early to name this a comeback—and it is up for debate if Overwatch 2 even wants a comeback because it’s by no means stopped being in style—but when a dunked-upon sport can get again on the nice aspect of its fickle Steam neighborhood, it is a typically nice signal for its well being. Cyberpunk 2077 pulled it off after being broadly criticized for launch bugs.
