A couple of months ago, Blizzard Entertainment celebrated the first anniversary for “Overwatch”. It included several limited in-game rewards for the seasonal event. A total of 11 new hero skins and three new arena maps were added to the team-based shooter. Furthermore, the Anniversary event ended on a positive note with its Double XP Weekend bonus. While other publishers prefer to just release the game without any aftermarket support or with barely any, the team behind the sci-fi shooter seems to think otherwise.
Additional heroes
“Overwatch” players participating in the Public Test Realm (PTR) just received another additional hero last week.
The famous character Doomfist finally makes his appearance as the 25th hero and fourth added hero since the game came out last year. Blizzard Entertainment appears to have made up for its Anniversary event, which did not include any new characters. The publisher’s strategy of steadily releasing clues and hints about characters keeps gamers in anticipation for the next hero. Currently, the shooter has thrown in Ana, Sombra, Orisa, and Doomfist (currently limited to the PTR build).
The patches in detail
The team behind the game has released a lot of Post-game updates and content since last year. Blizzard was able to share more detailed example like:
- Since the game came out, it has already received 119 Patches, which includes 14 major patches and 39 client patches.
- The developers have also released 37 rulesets for the Brawl and Arcade modes.
- Started off with 1,248 in-game items, but has grown to 2,203 as of today.
Blizzard’s strategy aims to keep its players by throwing in something new every now and then.
New heroes add more depth and new learning curves for the shooter. So far, the added bonuses have kept veteran players invested in the game, and at the same time, new gamers are attracted by the regular surprises.
Fans are important
One of the other reasons why fans absolutely love playing the team-based FPS is the transparent communication.
Blizzard Entertainment constantly informs their fans through several platforms, which include the Developer Update videos on YouTube and their official “Overwatch” forums. Putting ourselves in fan's shoes, receiving updates from the developers about certain issues or new content would make us feel important. The game’s director, Jeff Kaplan, is the face fan's associate with the shooter.
He takes his time to report new developments, answer questions via the forums, and even replies through social media platforms, which is an excellent example of going beyond the extra mile.
Tweaks and balance changes
It is common for most multiplayer video games to encounter balance issues with its gameplay. However, marketing a game as a future eSports franchise would require quick action when it comes to player complaints. So far, the “Overwatch” team has been proactively addressing reported issues and balance problems in a timely manner. For example, a large number of players have been complaining about the frequency of getting duplicate items in the game. Blizzard Entertainment took action and announced that a fix would be in place together with Doomfist’s official arrival across all platforms.
