Overwatch s Dedication To Being Inclusive Is Its Greatest Strength

I’ll admit, when I first heard of Overwatch Guide, I didn’t pay much attention, probably because Blizzard games have never really caught my attention in the past (I’m not the biggest fan of RPGs or RTS games). I did, however, take the plunge and tried out the game’s open beta a few weeks ago and walked away pleasantly surprised. Oddly enough, though, it wasn’t the core mechanics or technical polish that caught my immediate attention. Rather, it was Blizzard’s attention to inclusivity that impressed me the most.

Imagine my surprise when I was looking through the cast of characters and stumbled upon Symmetra, a support character who has the ability to bend and reshape light into mechanical constructs. While there are a growing number of characters of Indian descent in video games ( The Order: 1886 and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate feature a few), it’s very rare that they are featured as playable characters. I immediately took her for a spin, and after I decided to check out the complete roster of playable characters.

This focus on overall team success is part of the game’s DNA, and it shows both in-game and when you’re not actively in a match. There are plenty of leaderboards and statistics to let you know how you fare with each character, and the ability to try out each character in a ‘tutorial map’ is a very useful feature. In-game, there are plenty of ways to communicate with teammates. Aside from traditional methods like voice or type chat, pre-determined messages can be accessed on the fly, from simple greetings to more informational chatter.


Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just hit the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting. As always, if you encounter any bugs during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experien

Perhaps the biggest troll of the entire roster, Junkrat thrives on blocking off pathways and causing straight up chaos on the battlefield. His main weapon, the Frag Launcher, allows him to lob and bounce explosives that have a short detonation delay (unless they directly impact a player). Because of this, Junkrat is able to utilize cover, large walls and corners all while still being able to cause massive amounts of damage to opposing teams. If you're not constantly firing grenades and using projectiles to force players onto alternate paths, you're playing this character incorrectly. In addition to being able to manually launch grenades, his Total Mayhem perk automatically drops grenades upon player death, meaning that you can essentially play as a martyr if all else fails. Not only does Total Mayhem work as a method of frustrating other players, but it's absolutely devastating against characters who dare to get too close.

Rather, there’s a more pressing issue that has become increasingly more important as we enter (or instead, have already entered) a new era of video games that evolves from out its infancy as but a mere medium or a hobby…and transforms into an industry, a business. And that’s self-awareness; the notion that, perfectly fine as it is to show pride, professionalism and posterity as a creator/director/manager/whoever (be it for consumers, audiences or share-holders alike) it’s just as important to take your eye just that little bit out of the epicentre and look beyond the stained-glass windows to your splendid ivory towers. To see how the industry might be perceived-come-translated across to the community. No matter the intensity. Oh yes…there are obviously so many other matters to attend to such as…perhaps…not treating consumer bases like docile piggybanks; not deliberately miscuing information; not letting every nit-picking, social media-sappy, correctness-avid serial complainer dictate the who, what, when & why of your games.


Besides the size of this update, the rate at which this Heroes of the Storm update arrived is particularly noteworthy. Since they resumed in 2022, most of these updates have had two to three months between them, and about a month between the patch's arrival on the Public Test Realm and the live release. Not only did this patch arrive faster than usual – less than two months after the last Heroes of the Storm update – but it also came the same month as it hit the PTR. While this could mean nothing, Heroes of the Storm ’s 10-year anniversary is on June 2, leading many fans to wonder if the increased attention could herald something big in store for the MOBA's big milest

When developer Pixel Titans released a new trailer for upcoming nostalgia-bleeding, fast-paced shooter STRAFE, safe to say what they unveiled could be regarded as material that goes against the tide of contemporary "gameplay" promotion, trailers and all. The decision to take its blocky, pixelated aim at this thematic and quote-unquote cinematic direction modern games have often approached and blindly lavished over worked wonders for two completely opposing and quite ironically-positioned reasons. One: the developers are clearly confident enough to add a an extra flair of presentation and direction to their still ongoing project. And two: they’re more than willing to be the butt to their own joke -- opening up the flood-gates guarding not just the industry they’re a part of, but more prudently, of themselves as but one more studio in a grand sum of thousands.