It's 11:48 am on Monday, October 3, and I can't pl൲ay Overwatch 1 anymore. Bizarrely, the chat is still going, ticking away in the bottom left corner even though I can't navigate past the main menu. "I hope you have a nice Christmas," reads one message. "When do they shut the servers?" a chatter asks. "I want to see the Easter egg." Several players start spamming "good game" messages in the chat, while many more attempt to sneak curses past Blizzard's filter. "**** this ******* game" is the last message I read.
At 12:01 pm, I'm booted to the start screen, where I'm informed that the servers are offline to prepare for the launch of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Overwatch 2. And thus ends the legacy of Overwatch 1, littered with curse words, a mix of sarcastic and serious "gg" spam, and confusion - but no Easter egg. What a weird, fitting en꧑ding for the 📖game.
The end of an era
I spent most of the last weekend of Overwatch 1 playing competitive mode, joining squads looking for healers or queueing up as a flex player with one of my friends. A few of my teammates were shocked to learn that the game was shu🍬tting down, while others were aware of its mortality but not of its time of death. "Wait, I only have a day left?" one asked incredulously over voice chat. "What the hell, that sucks!"
Overwatch 1 competitive mode has always been an interesting experience. Although I love to 🤡play high-stakes games and prefer it over quick play mode, it can get incredibly toxic. Naturally, the 🅷last few days of Overwatch 1 comp had its fair share of quitters who were unbothered by the hit their ranks would take by dropping out of matches early. Several of my matches ended with my team waving at one or two remaining enemy players, their teammates having left them mid-match, a chorus of different greetings from Moira, Reinhardt, D.Va, and other iconic heroes ringing in my ears.
Other games were populated by players refusing to switch off of heroes or throwing blame at everyone else in the text and voice chat - a typical Overwatch comp experience, albeit an exhausting one. I encountered a few players openly throwing games, including a Mei who consistently blocked me from leaving our spawn area while asking over voice chat why I was getting angry. "Mei is mean," a silent teammate wrote in the text chat. At one point, after a player started spamming the text chat with hate speech, I jokingly said, "Maybe this game needs to die." My te♌ammates laughed, while my co-healer quipped, "A fitting end, isn't it?"
Bizarrely, Overwatch 1 competitive mode was locked out before quick play became unavailable, so after my final comp match, I jumped into the other mode to try and squeeze a few more games in before the 12 pm server shut down. The mood was silly and lighthearted, with myself and a Mercy player exchanging jokes about other characters and lamenting our future as healer mains in the faster, deadlier Overwatch 2. "Well, I ⛎don't know when this is going to end, but I've enjoyed playing with you," they said. "See you on the other side!" I couldn't play another match after that.
Ov♌erwatch 1 died as it lived: periodical♐ly toxic and occasionally chaotic, but full of bursts of love and laughter. It was as unhinged an ending as I'd expect from the game, but it doesn't make its loss hurt any less.
Overwatch 2 debuts in Early Access – completely replacing the original game – for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One,൩ PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC on Octob♚er 4.
Ahead of Overwatch 2, a eulogy for the Overwatch I once knew.
Alyssa Mercante is an editor and features writer at GamesRadar based out of Brooklyn, NY. Prior to entering the industry, she got her Masters's degree in Modern and Contemporary Literature at Newcastle University with a dissertation focusing on contemporary indie games. She spends most of her time playing competitive shooters and in-depth RPGs and was recently on a PAX 🐠Panel about the best bars in video games. In her spare time Alyssa rescues cats, practices her Italian, and plays soccer.
