I did not purchase a PlayStation 4 until August 2016 for a number of reasons.

Almost 2 years behind the console curve I’m still trying to catch up on a number of games I’ve missed. While I’m struggling to catch up partly because life simply gets in the way, another big reason I’m struggling with this is because of Overwatch. I saw a difference between console generations, as did everyone, but not enough of one to say “I need to get a PS4”. When Overwatch released a free-to-play open beta between May 2-9, 2016, I knew nothing about it. One of my friends told me about it, claimed I needed to play it, and went to the extent of making go to his room to play on his PS4. Playing Overwatch, having the time of my life, and being instantly pulled into a game so quickly I was inching closer and closer to the TV as the game drew on, Overwatch was the game that showed me that the next generation of games was here. I believe everyone should give Overwatch a try, and here’s a few reasons why.

Easy to pick-up and play!
Characters Play Extremely Diversely
Characters Are Extremely Diverse
Overwatch Offers Fun for Competitive and Casual Players
Overwatch Offers Literally Hours of Fun

Many video games require a person to complete several different levels of easy or fake enemies to get used to the game. This allows time for the user to adjust to things such as the art style, control scheme, and in certain games the characters’ various personalities and ability limits. Some games execute tutorials better than others (PUT THOSE STUPID EXPLANATION BOXES AWAY, MINECRAFT) and other games offer nothing resembling a tutorial and throw you in on the deep end (one of the many reasons I don’t like Destiny). Overwatch recommends you play the tutorial but will not bar you from jumping in game and figuring things out for yourself, and the game’s individual character controls screen do a fine enough job of explaining each character’s abilities that finding a character that you can have fun playing as is easy enough to do on your own. Speaking of characters…

While traditional games in the first-person shooter genre allow you to choose a class and customize weapons to a certain extent to allow you to play your way, Overwatch’s characters allow enough diversity in style of play that offering customization on a purely aesthetic level doesn’t detract from the experience. The game offers 4 main roles, Offense, Defense, Support, and Builder, but the individual characters fulfill their respective roles in such vastly different ways that finding a character you can adapt to your playstyle works. Personally, I prefer to play a tank because I’m too stubborn to take cover and heal and the health of a tank allows me to still play aggressively and still contribute, but in most other games it comes at the cost of speed and maneuverability. In Overwatch I main D.Va, as she allows me to still play aggressively, but her rocket booster allows her to take non-traditional positions throughout the map and move quickly. Another example of a less-traditional character is Ana, who is a support/sniper. Many support characters force the player to remain fairly close to other characters in order to heal, placing the delicate role often in a dangerous position (if I may digress, PROTECT YOUR HEALERS, thank you). Ana allows characters to change what ammo she fires from her rifle, allowing her to shoot critical teammates to heal them while simply changing ammo to resume attacking enemies as well. She offers sleep ammo, allowing her to help a teammate out of a situation against an enemy with significantly more health, all of this without moving from the average sniper position. No matter what your role or playstyle, Overwatch has a character for you.

Blizzard is well-known for marrying compelling and fun gameplay with beautifully written stories about fascinating characters. Overwatch is no exception, only this time the depth has gone even further. Overwatch contains the most ethnically diverse cast I’ve ever seen. In game, Overwatch contains little to no story in-game, but with a little bit of digging, the world in which Overwatch exists comes alive, and the depth of both story and character provide an extreme amount of reading material that contains themes of slavery, racism, power-struggles, and much more. Overwatch director Jeffrey Kaplan was quoted as saying “We want Overwatch to be this bright, positive universe, where everybody feels like they could be a hero. That’s our most basic goal…” and the spectrum of characters certainly takes steps to this goal.

Overwatch has 3 basic game types if you want to play with other people, Quick Play, Competitive, and Weekly Brawl. While Quick Play offers you every map and every possible game mode, the matchmaking system doesn’t do a great job of keeping you in lobbies with players of your own level (partially because the leveling system doesn’t affect your ability to perform in game, as the only leveling benefits are aesthetic, such as skins and emotes). Many times I have been the lowest level player in my lobby by 15 levels or more, it naturally creates a more relaxed environment by allowing players of extremely varying experience with the game to play with each other. Of course this doesn’t help you avoid the occasional troll or try-hard, but that’s more of a human-kind problem than a Blizzard problem. Competitive offers the competitive game type, which can be played only on payload maps (Ruling out maps like Hanamura and Ilos) and is only available to players level 25 and up (leveling may not affect your gameplay, but a certain amount of experience should be expected from players looking to actually compete). The Weekly Brawl is generally used to showcase a new hero or map (as with the release of Ana or Eichenwalde), or to allow players a refreshing new type of gameplay, as with Lucioball (being fairly reminiscent of Rocket League) or Junkenstein’s Revenge (glorified horde mode). People looking to really challenge themselves in the Weekly Brawl should probably find a group of friends to play it with, considering they’re usually 4 player teams as opposed to 6.

With 13 maps and 22 playable characters, there is no end to the combinations of characters and playstyles and experiences to explore in Overwatch. From serious games where one team wins by a paper thin margin, to ridiculous games where the teams are made up of 5 Reapers and Mercy versus 5 Reapers and a Hanzo and everyone is in it for fun, Overwatch never ceases to bring out a smile. Even when you’re on the losing side of a game, or you backfill a game for a team with no hope of winning, the character dialog and various combat situations manage to be enjoyable. The longest I can usually sit down and play a video game is about an hour and a half before I have to move on (with the exception of the occasional 11 hour Skyrim marathon, totally been there and done that). I sat down with Overwatch for a casual play session in August and I played for 3.5 hours, only stopping because I had to leave, not because I was sick of it. I have done this on 4 other occasions since then, and not once do I ever get bored or feel like I’m playing the same game over and over again as I have with so many FPSs before it. Overwatch is a game made for everyone, in every way that a game possibly can be. Whether you always play video games and Overwatch just didn’t make your radar, you’re a casual gamer who thought this wouldn’t be the game for you, or are looking for a reason to get into the gaming scene, I implore everyone with a functioning gaming system to give Overwatch a try.