Why is this games story below average

Story Discussion
1

It feels like no one cared about the story and they make it so cliché, how can it ever been. I mean do you not have story writer? You need at least one writer, good one, and it all would be ok. (Heroes of the storm is a great example of potential going wasted… “Good vs Evil”?… if this is your understanding, then you should not write story… how Blizzard wasted that story kinda hurts)

This event is a perfect example. let me tell you how it goes…. It makes players believe they have a choice but it is not like that. It goes Talon - OW - Talon - OW - ? just to build tension… This is the simple form to create it… And feels really stupid to play it! (you even had chapters named after like that)

Most of he characters seems underdeveloped… You could have few of them, since in reality some people are also like that but most of them having less personality is a bit much.

Even people in real life are not this one sided, so why are your characters?

The game is fine but story is so low, that I feel bad whoever I play (in story in mind). They feel hollow… They have “empty” one liners.

It feels odd to tell you this, since I would expect you have someone who writes stories on payroll…. but…

A most BASIC way to improve your characters is to understand our world. So ask yourself BASIC questions like: Why does conflict happen? How it does? How does arguments happen? Who does the “evil” things? ect…. this is the most BASIC and I feel like the characters I play do not even know who they are and neither can they defend their world view. Some are “Evil” and some are “Good”… Like what kind of a world does your story writer lives in, if it can only write “propaganda” level stories?

It amazes me that it is so low…. I would not accept even free volunteer story writing at this level (for example in my DnD). But how a company that has so much resources does less then that…

I did not mind it before, since it felt like your story was a lame filler before… but now since you try to do more story and this is it?… That is what triggered me.

1 Like
2

there are multiple problems.

  1. Telling a good and coherent story was never really the focus of Overwatch. The story was a nice sideaspect to interest people in the characters and the world. For the entirety of Overwatch the Story barley moved. Most of it basically were just backstory stuff. We had the recall an then? Basically just the Carneval Talon stuff, Reunion and Mei, all within like 6 month since Recall, everything else was before. Then we start with a 2 years Timeskip to OW2
  2. Nowadays, especially since OW2 and PvE, its just a vehicle for marketing and gameplay. If it does not serve those, the story is useless for them. We saw that with Nullsector. They came out of nowhere (because they needed something for PvE) and then vanished how they came (with the cancelation of pve) no buildup or anything. All the new Default skins of the Heros are not integreated into the story, without any improvements (unlike MCU Iron Man), and even create plotholes. Vendetta is another example, she is just there now, now buildup or anything (unlike we had with Doom or Sombra)
  3. And the big elefant in the room. Michael Chu as lead writer left in 2020(?). He was the father of the lore and even he chanced and retconed stuff via twitter. But ever since he left it seam they have a high fluctuation in this Departement without and knowlegetransfer. And is feels like the new folks just want to get away from the old ideas asap to work on their own. Furthermore every comic, shortstory or anything feels like its written by someone else where everyone has its own goals. Too many cooks spoil the broth.

But yeah, a good Story is not the focus as its only a means to an end.

2 Likes