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Overwatch 2 announced that it would be returning to the Chinese region right at the beginning of the year, with NetEase and Blizzard coming to a new agreement for a contract which would allow players to access the game again. But now NetEase has not just one but two hero shooters on its hands—although that doesn’t seem to be too much of an issue.
“The expectations for Overwatch are similar to those for World of Warcraft and Hearthstone,” NetEase said during an earnings call. “The aim is to revitalize the product and reach new highs. Both Marvel Rivals and Overwatch are excellent superhero shooters, and the market is large enough to accommodate both games. NetEase will strive to meet the diverse demands of their respective player communities.”
While Overwatch 2 initially became inaccessible in China thanks to Blizzard and NetEase being unable to agree on a new contract, other Blizzard games like Hearthstone and World of Warcraft returned much sooner. While this was probably just due to licensing complications, some players have formed a conspiracy theory of their own.
“In my opinion the biggest reason why Overwatch’s comeback has been delayed that much, is that NetEase wanted to ensure it had the spotlight for that period of time, and also counted on the Overwatch hate train to gain traction,” a player says. “But that’s an opinion, nothing I know so far proves this aside from timeline coincidence.”
There’s been a lot of comparison between Overwatch 2 and Marvel Rivals. Back when Marvel Rivals was still in beta a lot of players were seeing similarities between hero abilities. Magneto, Black Panther, and Hulk all seemed eerily similar to Sigma, Genji, and D.Va, and while that’s not exactly changed, Marvel Rivals is much more chaotic than Overwatch 2 and so does play differently. But that didn’t stop the former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra from alluding to the fact that NetEase copied Widowmaker’s design for Black Widow.
Despite an initial boost in Marvel Rivals players compared to Overwatch 2, both games seem to be doing well right now. Overwatch 2 clawed back a ‘Mixed’ Steam review rating after a really well received perks update, and Marvel Rivals has kept a pretty steady Steam player count of around 300,000 for the last month.
Both games may be hero shooters, but in reality they’re different enough to attract separate crowds. Marvel Rivals is chaotic fun, with loads of broken heroes who’ve all just been thrown together without much thought given to balancing out abilities, while Overwatch 2 is more consistent and competitive with better balance patches coupled with a new and interesting perk system. I enjoy both for different reasons, and odds are most other players will too.
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Kurt Indovina
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