Seven years ago, this would have been my weekly recommendation of what to play – after all, I did put over 1,000 hours into the original Overwatch – but if you told me coming into 2026 that I’d be back into it, I would have laughed at you. But here we are; Overwatch’s recent complete overhaul, which saw the game stripped of the “2” in its title, made me curious enough to jump back in. As a regular player from 2016 to 2019, Overwatch sits near the top of my personal favorite games of all time, but following the announcement of Overwatch 2 back in 2019, the title fell off hard. Content slowed to a drip as the team focused on Overwatch 2’s story content, most of which never saw the light of day. Then, when Overwatch 2 arrived, I still enjoyed it (I gave it an 9 out of 10, after all), but it was a far cry from the novelty and excitement surrounding the original game during those first several years.
This reworking of the entire game is so much more than just a simple title rebrand; in addition to a more prominent story, complete with Blizzard’s famously great cinematics, it’s also refocusing on what players love. A permanent 6v6 mode is there for those who favor the original Overwatch team compositions. A ton of new heroes are joining the roster this year (including five heroes just this week), completely flipping any existing Meta on its head. And speaking of Meta, the new Conquest Meta Event has you pick a faction and fight for it over the course of a five-week event, earning rewards every step of the way. As someone who hasn’t played the game for several years now, I’m struggling to not only rewire my rusty muscle memory, but also relearn my favorite heroes, as many of them have received reworks in my absence. It’s a little overwhelming, and many of my old strategies now fail, but I’m having a blast dipping my toe back in. And when I am able to go on a run as one of my old favorites, I’m reminded precisely why I fell in love with this game in the first place.
