The 'Overwatch 2' beta brings fresh content to a stale game

engadget.com:

My love of indie games and weird hardware is well documented, but I have to admit it here: The game I’ve sunk the most hours into is Overwatch. I’ve been playing since it came out in 2016, mostly on PlayStation, but I also have accounts on Xbox and PC. I main Mei, D.Va and Moira, with a side of Symmetra and Orisa, and to this day I play competitive mode about three times a week.

I’ve been desperate to get my hands on Overwatch 2, especially since Blizzard has been teasing it for more than two years. This week, the Overwatch 2 beta went live and I finally got to see how this thing plays, complete with the new damage hero, Sojourn, and a fresh 5v5 format.

Let’s call it like it is: Overwatch has grown stale over the past year or so, with minimal updates and an unofficial freeze on new heroes, maps and modes. This isn’t just opinion, either – it got so bad that game director Aaron Keller actually apologized for the lack of Overwatch content and communication back in March.

The beta is by no means a finished product, but it features all the things Blizzard is trying to tweak, including updates to audio cues, crisper animations and environments, and complete reworks for some longtime heroes. Overwatch 2 looks and sounds great already, and I don’t think it’s just because we’ve been starved for new content for so long. Gunshots and explosions carry more bass and cut off cleanly, while the sound of a headshot breaks through the chaos with a sharp, satisfying ping.

Alongside visual and lighting improvements to existing maps, Overwatch 2 adds a new scoreboard when pressing tab that shows stats for all players in the game, listing out kills, assists, deaths, healing and damage output. I appreciate the transparency, but even with all the