The Blizzard shooter at a glance: How Overwatch works

Overwatch was the eSports debut of last year. Just two and a half months after its release, 15 million people worldwide were already playing the new shooter. What's more, with Overwatch, Blizzard created a fresh universe with many exciting characters.

More than just a shooter

In its basic features, Overwatch is a shooter. However, instead of classes like in Battlefield 1, you choose heroes. They not only have completely different weapons, but also individual skills. Each hero has a total of four skills (with the exception of Symetra), and these range from creating a wall of ice to throwing a stunning grenade. If you use an ability, it can't be used for a few seconds. The strongest ultimate technique, on the other hand, must be recharged by attacking enemies and cannot be used from the start.

On the other hand, an ultimate ability - used correctly - can single-handedly decide an entire battle. With 23 characters to choose from, there's a lot for new players to learn. At the beginning, however, it is enough to know the abilities of your own hero well. Those who want to try out Overwatch without much learning effort can do so with the hero Soldier: 76. He relies on his assault rifle to deal out damage. His abilities are also very simple: He can sprint, place a healing field, use stronger ammo and not miss his target for a short time via ultimate ability.

The Soldier: 76 is a hero for Overwatch beginners.

How to win a match

Before the round starts, you choose a hero. Each of the six players on a team makes their own decision, but it pays to make sure you have a good combination of characters. Blizzard tries to help you with this. The heroes are divided into four classes: Offensive, Defensive, Tank and Support.

Offensive:

Heroes who specialize in doing a lot of damage. It doesn't matter if it's from a long distance or in close combat.

Defensive:

Heroes who are especially helpful in defending a point. They benefit from a position and often prefer to avoid direct combat.

Tank:

Heroes who can take a lot of damage. They have shields or healing to stay alive as long as possible.

Support:

Heroes who assist teammates through healing and other skills. Alone they are weak, but for a team they are indispensable.

If you are not satisfied with your choice, you can change heroes in the middle of a game. In the game, it is then essential for victory to inflict damage on enemy characters and thus set their hit points to 0. Then that character is taken out of the game for a few seconds and your team can take advantage of the outnumbered situation to tackle the main objective. This objective differs depending on the game mode.

The heroes come from one of four classes.

In Attack mode, you must capture two control points in succession while the opposing team tries to defend them. If only members of your team are standing on a point for a certain amount of time, you'll capture it

A similar principle applies to control. The only difference is that both teams must capture the same target point. This must then be held for a longer period of time while a bar fills up. At 100 percent you have won.

In Escort, as the name suggests, you have to escort a cargo to a destination. However, the cargo will only move if a player on your team is next to it.

The fourth game mode is a mixture of Assault and Escort, so it's simply called Assault/Escort. To win in this mode, you must first capture a point and then escort the cargo, which will leave from the captured point.

In the various game modes, if you don't complete the objective in the allotted time, you will lose the match.

Honor to whom honor is due

After the end of a match, Overwatch still awards some players for good performances. Four possible players are suggested, who can come from both the winning and losing teams. After that, it's up to the twelve participants of the match to choose a so-called MVP (most valuable player). The best move of the match will also be shown once again.

Overwatch is available on PC as well as for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. However, it is not a free-to-play title. So to try Overwatch, you'll either have to pay money or wait for one of the rare weekends when the title is free to play for everyone. It's definitely worth giving this somewhat different shooter a chance and diving into the universe of Overwatch.

by Christian Mittweg