my major issue with it is actually the way that the lore was presented 2 us. There was comparatively little, the characters don’t banter with each other like they did in either uprising or retribution. They missed a big opportunity to really flesh out the relationships on this team like how the relationships between the other two teams got fleshed out.
Instead we kind of got 3 characters whose personalities are very similar, and genji. The only discerning factors between tracer, mercy and winston is that winston sounds a bit more sciency, mercy tells us very straightforward whats happening in the world instead of talking abt it like a normal human being would) and tracers a bit lacking in the strategies department. Several dialogue options that include Tracer, winston and mercy could easily be switched between the three of them without any noticeable difference. The only really distinct characterization is really Genji.
lets take a look see, and change characters in interactions from past events and current events.
Moira: I believe you found an expedient solution, commander.
Reyes: Hear that ? The good doctor agrees with my decision.
Genji: You be sure to call her as a character witness then.
Reyes: I still think we should have gone with the original plan of disguising ourselves as the band.
Genji: Do you even play an instrument, boss?
Reyes: Not well.
Genji: (scoff) Details.
Genji: So much for keeping a low profile. The entire city must be awake now.
McCree : Let’s just get out of here alive.
Genji: Perhaps next time we might select a less suicidal plan of attack.
doesn’t work. You cant hear the characters say those lines.
What about Uprising?
Mercy: Null Sector has three anti-aircraft guns set up in King’s Row. We need to clear them out so Torbjörn can drop in his latest monstrosity. Assuming it works!
Torbjorn : It’ll work!
Reinhardt: That’s what you always say.
Reinhardt: See, nothing to worry about, rookie.
Tracer: Who said I was worried?
Torbjorn: Well, you forgot to tie your shoes.
Tracer: Oh! Wait… my shoes don’t have laces.
Tracer: You really think that’s gonna work?
Torbjorn: I built it! Of course it’s going to work!
Reinhardt: Inspires confidence, doesn’t he?
again. The characters aren’t interchangeable. the characterizations are completely off.
Lets look at some storm rising interactions with characters swapped…
Winston: It must be hard for us to gather intel with Blackwatch sidelined.
Genji: I wouldn’t know.
Winston: Don’t you talk to your old teammates?
Tracer: What do you think will happen if we can’t get Max?
Mercy: They’ve been threatening to reassign the entire operation.
Genji: Morrison and Reyes have been arguing about it quite a bit lately.
Tracer: But what about the Strike Team? We’ve just gotten started.
Mercy: It might be the end of the line for us too.
there isn’t any unique characterization that makes this read as wrong. You can swap any of the characters for any of the others in almost all of the interactions and they make just as much sense for that character to say. The only one who is off is Genji, and that’s because no one else can say in a flat tone. “He’ll talk.” and be recognizably their character.
So that’s a real hindrance to this event. If the characterizations were just a bit better i feel like a lot more people would be happy with the lore aspect of the event. But it’s very weak lore wise. We have aspects that we can’t get any meaning to (IE the new characters we know very little if anything about), unanswered questions that hamper our ability to understand other parts of the story (is ana alive or not? The event doesnt make that clear, where’s McCree? if BW is sidelined why is gabriel arguing for jurisdiction of fighting talon?) while it also asks new questions.
On the whole, I actually think the gameplay’s decent. Some people are complaining about the lack of new enemies, but its genuinely w/e to me. It’s an anti-talon mission, it makes sense to reuse the talon troops we’ve seen across overwatch’s media- they’ve looked the same since McCree’s comic, for heavens sake. The lack of a final boss doesn’t bother me too bad, as the last two heavies are pretty difficult to finish off since Winston cannot crit them lmfao.
What gets me about the final cutscene is that it had the audacity to end in a cliffhanger. This is a dive into Overwatch’s history. It’s a single story in the wider story. Uprising started with a war breaking out in London, and when we won we knew that they succeeded in stopping the war. That plot was wrapped up nicely and even tho there were unanswered questions (was Overwatch’s involvement seen as a positive or a negative? Where’s agent McCree?) we had a solid ending. We defeated Null Sector and freed the hostages. We did what we came to do.
Retribution- Talon striked at Overwatch’s base, Reyes set out ready to play on their level. We get there and he shoots antonio. Instantly drama spilled out and we knew it was gonna be a shoot out. Plan B wasn’t planned beforehand, so it was going to be a rough and publicized escape. It ends with our escape- just barely- as Talon forces continue to swarm them. But, even though we escaped, theres clearly aftermath where Gabriel- and blackwatch- are going to pay for the actions, and what happened. It completed the story nicely by pointing out with McCree that maybe this was where it all started to go wrong. (answering questions about reaper’s reasoning for going bad).
Storm rising shows us they catch maximilien, Mercy asks for an introduction (probably to doomfist). and then thats it. What was the truth we were looking for, exactly? as thats the tagline of the event. Then it cuts to doomfist and a new character instead of answering any of the questions it gave us, instead of showing anything happening in overwatch or what happens when they have Maximilien. Is his capture good for the strike team? Does it ease tensions for the moment, get any of the flack off the Strike Commander? We don’t know. We sure know that Talons courting a new omnic in anubis, though. But we don’t even know his name. Frustrating.
tl;dr the event could have been great if the story was clearer, if the personalities of the characters had been fleshed out better in their interactions with each other instead of being very, very similar, and if we had gotten more answers than questions instead of the other way around.