Like I was honestly a bit upset last year when the first crossover for the game was announced for overwatch because I was so tired of everything being a crossover with everything. I thought the OPM wasn’t the best start, like the kiriko skin was literally half-recolor, but they’ve turned it around since then. I think they key differences that make OW’s crossover’s work are
- The skins usually go to hero’s who have similar vibes or energy as the original character
- The skins look great on their own even if you have no familiarity with the source material
- The crossover character’s elements don’t completely drown out the original hero design
- really great theming in all of the promotional material, menu screens, and sometimes even gamemodes
- None of the skins are designed as a joke or for shock value
Basically instead of just co-opting the original work, they’re building upon it. The crossovers let them explore new areas of designs and art styles that they normally wouldn’t and then put a distinct Overwatch spin on it. Like this porsche crossover let them go with this sleek luxury style that we wouldn’t really see in OW previously, and as a result I’m looking forward to the event despite being someone who isn’t into cars and drives the opposite of a Porsche. Same goes for the last one, that concert clash mode got me pumped up even though I never listen to kpop
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As long as they don’t Fartnite the game, a few collaborations a year shouldn’t be an issue.
For me, it’s kind of the opposite, but I have mixed feelings here. Overwatch has its own established lore (as dead in the water as it is) that it plays fairly straight most of the time. Obviously the collabs are non-canon, but it still feels odd to see “the characters, but not really”, if that makes sense.
I also feel the same about the themed BPs, for the most part. It feels weird to see the established characters act completely different just for the purpose of a battle pass’s theme, and it feels like these characters we fell in love with during the game’s initial release are now just walking canvases that can be whatever the current BP calls for.
Collabs with things like Porsche are weird, too. I don’t know what a high-class car brand has to do with Overwatch. OPM and Cowboy Bebop are at least other pop-culture series. I don’t think anyone is getting out of their chair excited about “YOOOO PORSCHE IS IN OVERWATCH NOW!!”.
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Outright I despise them. They can be cool, I wont pretend that Cowboy Bebop crossovers dont look unironically good, but with more and more crossovers it becomes a joke.
Smite literally ruined itself by spamming awful crossover after awful crossover, and adding in every last joke skin they could think of. Crossovers are a slippery slope, and Blizzard deserves zero trust.
There are very few things people should copy from Fortnite if they want to not be hated by their community, and crossovers arent one of those things.
I despise Epic to this day for singlehandedly ruining monetization in video games, basically all on their own.
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thank you for reminding me to add this to the list. The funny shock value skins are one of the most infuriating parts of it in most games to me. Like I saw the smite runescape thing and thought it was kinda funny, but once you get to the fortnite point of just spamming stuff like that over and over it just gets sickening. The only reason it worked at all in fortnite was because that game had such a generic cartoony style that anything could work in it, but even then it got tiring
They’ve been on a good trajectory for 3 in a row now, so I have a bit of faith
Yep, and every iteration of copying fortnite the battlepass and shops get worse and worse
Just the opposite. I don’t mind it in forntite since the entire game is just one big advertisement but the stupid out of place season themes and obscure collabs just made OW lost its identity.
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I mean right now we have 2 (I’m not really counting the LeSserafim/Gentle Monster since like they aren’t cosplaying if that makes sense?) as long as the pace of the more… Hard crossover ones stays like 1/year I don’t think it’ll be annoying.
Now if s10 has like a Dragonball collab, 12 has JJK, 15 has Harry Potter ect I will slowly die. I think it’s not a problem as long as there’s a good space where we’re getting original skins that’s just OW hero in a new outfit between them cosplaying other media, but if we’re constantly getting crossovers it’ll be a bit much.
I really want you to clarify what in gods name you mean by being a good trajectory for 3 years.
All of their other games are meh at best. WoW is too big to fail, Diablo literally got ruined by its very first seasonal patch, Diablo Immortal set record with its greed. Overwatch has half its player base completely and violently split on 5v5 vs 6v6, and is also a hyper greedy full priced recolor spammer that got into 2 different legal issues in 2 different countries over its manipulative shop systems.
The literal only good thing to happen has been the removal of Kotick, and at this point its too little too late, because if Bungie is any example, once youre touched by Activision youre ruined as a company.
Giving this employee touching company any goodwill will remain a mistake for years to come. No amount of “promising trajectory” be it real or fake will change it. They need to actually make it to “good” and not just be going “in the direction of good”
Oh, I meant the last 3 crossovers, not the last 3 years lol. I trust them with the crossovers, not much else
I hate how much better they are in fortnite
Nah that was Valve. Who came up with this idea in dota 2 and Epic just copied it and made it popular.
im fine with the crossovers…
if theres one thing i love about overwatch its the art team…(other games as well)
i just hate that they (the colllabs) exist solely to milk people of their money…like theyre not there because theyre a cool way to engage their communities…no, theyre just there because they know they can get some people to open their wallets…and theyre often not shy about it AT ALL
not a popular game so it wont get any hate
I actually like Overwatch’s approach of retaining their characters’ identities with crossover stuff more than other games’ take on collabs. Smite and Fortnite, to my knowledge, kind of just shove the crossover character in as-is.
Blizzard is also pickier with who they collab with, I’m sure. So far, they’ve picked luxury brands and properties/groups that have a lot of acclaim going in. I’d raise an eyebrow if they did, like, classic Nicktoons like Smite did.
I’ve also been waiting for the opportunity to rub it in people’s faces that Blizzard chose Le Sserafim despite forum-goers claiming “I’ve never heard of them why are they not BTS.” Perfect Night wound up being their biggest song yet lmfao
It did very good. I wonder how it affected Overwatch’s PC Bang numbers
Agreed. Kinda makes me think Blizz don’t actually know their audience that well. Most of the people playing OW will not fit into the same demographic as the kind of people who own a Porsche.
Epic made them quite a bit worse though by not including a community marketplace or item trading, which means that pretty much everything in their game is always limited time to try to scare players into spending
I mean at least they’re doing something kind of eccentric and interesting instead of just pandering with “hey look at this thing you like”