I started playing Overwatch in 2019. By the time I was pushing payloads and getting Play of the Game with a well-placed Tactical Visor, a lot of the old hero kits and team compositions that were infamous when the hero shooter launched in 2016 were more like cautionary tales for relative newbies. But since I never experienced things like Mercy being able to revive her entire team with a press of the triangle button, I was excited to see what I missed thanks to the current Overwatch Classic mode, which lets you play as the original versions of the 21-hero roster from 2016. However, even though there are still a few weeks left before the event ends on December 3, I played it for one night and…I think I’m done. I cannot believe y’all had the patience to play this game for thousands of hours eight years ago.
To be clear, a lot of my immediate aversion to Overwatch Classic likely comes from jumping into the shooter after Blizzard had spent years balancing and fine-tuning it. Some of the problems I have with the game would have been less damning if I’d jumped in when it was an exciting, brand-new thing that was fresh and hadn’t yet been sanded down by patches and ruleset changes. There’s something endearing about how unpolished Overwatch Classic feels. I imagine that back in 2016, it felt like there was so much potential for this universe and these heroes. If I’d been playing the game since launch, I think that feeling of potential is what I’d feel more nostalgic for, rather than the actual nuts and bolts of how Overwatch used to play.
The first match I played was against a team of three Roadhogs. I didn’t realize the “No Limits” setting that lets you and your team all pick the same character was in effect, meaning you could have teams made up of bulky tanks that would basically be immovable bullet sponges. These days, Overwatch 2 has limits that require you to play as different heroes, and in some modes your composition has to include an allotted number of characters per role. But it was the wild west in 2016 and people could create teams of all one hero if they wanted. And reader, that’s what my friends and I were up against. I thought I was gonna bust a blood vessel when I, as Soldier: 76, ran up the hill of the Hollywood map only to be greeted by a team of six Meis.
Mei, for those unfamiliar with her original kit, was able to freeze an enemy in their tracks with her primary fire. Her icy beam starts with a slowing effect that keeps you in place until the frozen status takes hold, giving the hero an easy opening to pop a headshot. That’s manageable when you’re facing one of her, but when it’s six? I effectively wasn’t playing for swaths of the match thanks to their icy assault, and even as we slowly but surely made progress on the objective, the opposing team didn’t change things up. It was just a constant barrage of ice keeping all of us in place.
I’m sure this was a funny bit for the opposing team, but I can’t imagine putting in the 1000+ hours I have in the game now if that’s what the game was like. What drew me to Overwatch in the first place was how heroes synergize, and facing opponents who have free reign to make a team of unkillable, self-healing tanks or the Overwatch equivalent of an Elsa snowstorm is the kind of thing that would have killed my enthusiasm for the game early on.
I’ve seen comments from the Overwatch community joking that the Overwatch Classic event is just reverse psychology to make people realize how good we’ve got it with Overwatch 2, and after playing the throwback mode for a night, I think I could be convinced of that. So much of Overwatch discourse is “make it like it used to be,” whether that be bringing back loot boxes instead of the battle pass it uses now, reverting to the 6v6 format instead of the current-day 5v5 structure, or going back to a previous rework for a character who doesn’t play like they once did. The original Overwatch was slower-paced, and playing it again after years of Overwatch 2 making the game feel more frantic is like suddenly getting caught in a fly trap. It’s a fun gimmick that’s brought back lapsed fans jonesing for the old days. But by and large, it’s been a reminder that sometimes parts of a game do get mechanically better over time and that maybe we’re not nostalgic for the game as it was, but the feeling we had when playing it.
I played a night of Overwatch Classic and I think I’ve had my fill. I missed all the characters I main that have been added since 2016 and all the balance and ruleset tweaks that have made matches feel less like chaotic shitposts. I don’t have much opinion on whether or not 6v6 should come back, but I do know that I’m more intrigued by the plans Blizzard has laid out for reintegrating that original ruleset than the free-for-all we once had.