There’s an old adage that goes, “All publicity is good publicity.” It’s not an infallible statement, though, because we can’t imagine that any company that was once known for pumping out prestige products is enjoying being turned into the laughingstock of the internet in the span of a week.
But that’s exactly the situation that Blizzard is in with Overwatch 2, thanks to the confluence of two factors: a playerbase let down by failed promises and the launch of the game on Steam this past week. It’s become a perfect storm of negativity, allowing disillusioned fans a high-profile platform to vent their anger. And vent it they have.
As of this morning, Steam’s Overwatch 2 page has racked up over 114,000 user reviews — of which only 9% are positive. That’s triple the count we saw by Friday of last week, when the number was still around 35,000K, but regardless, the magnitude of anger means the game is sitting in the “overwhelmingly negative” zone. The bulk of reviewers are totally shredding the game, quickly propelling Overwatch 2 to become the worst reviewed title in Steam history.
“Blizzard stole my copy of Overwatch 1 and replaced it with an altogether inferior product; from its gameplay, to its balancing, to its microtransactions, to its broken promises and outright lies,” one user wrote.
Many others hammered the game for its poor monetization, the abandonment of its promised hero mode after launch, and the wrecked partnership with NetEase in China that took Blizzard products out of the hands of consumers. Hilariously, some are noting that the only good thing to emerge from this sequel is its related porn scene.
Despite the reviews, at least some people are playing: The game’s seen peaks of 75K concurrent players who elected to go with Valve’s platform over Battlenet. It also became one of the top five top sellers on Steam last week for a hot minute thanks to battlepasses and cosmetics (it’s sunk considerably since then). Of course, we also know through the company’s investor reports that the game has seen a massive loss of players and engagement since its launch last autumn, so it certainly needed the launch on Steam – if not the negative reviews that came along with it.
This whirlwind of bad publicity has overshadowed the recent Invasion content release that came with a new hero and additional story missions.
