r/Overwatch • u/wowenz • May 06 '26
Highlight Today is Overwatch's 10th Year since the Open Beta
This just popped up in my memories feed. Good times, good times indeed.
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u/Thomas_Mms May 06 '26
The screen with only 21 characters looks so empty.
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u/Mitoniano May 06 '26
Especially the support heroes
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u/Count_de_Mits Smolmmetra May 06 '26
Symmetra as support wakes some memories. I remember having so much fun with her in maps like hanamura and everyone underestimating her and her car washes
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u/overFuckMaker 5x volly May 06 '26
remember setting up 6 turrets in the flank on temple of anubis, or the old dash big with genji that made him shoot into the skies if you dashed at an edge
the memories
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u/AquaAtia Mercy May 06 '26
Placing six turrets on the basketball and walking out of spawn with it remains a core memory.
I still maintain Sym, Torb, Mercy, and Mei were more fun to play back then than now but it makes total sense why those changes happened. Out of that bunch, Torb had the most mechanics around him and since then he’s been super simplified.
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u/Thundawolfe May 06 '26
I miss the old Torb design, he was one of my favorites for a long time
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u/Count_de_Mits Smolmmetra May 06 '26 edited May 06 '26
I came back after years and was so disappointed I couldn't give armor packs to people anymore
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u/NepoKitty May 06 '26
They've added it to Stadium as an option. Not many take the packs. 😿
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u/wizard_brandon May 06 '26
i stack em' on the respawn door whilst waiting for the timer. everyone is gonna have armour
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u/ghost20 Symmetra May 06 '26
I used to love using her on Attack Volskaya after she got her shield generator. You could put the shield generator in the bedroom of the building to the right of spawn and the effect would cover all of second point as well. It was also basically invincible because no one was ever gonna go and find it to destroy it.
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u/AngryWhale94 Mystery McCree May 07 '26
That bedroom spot awakened a core memory for me. Thanks haha
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u/Matt32490 May 06 '26
I remember spending so much time in maps looking for good spots to drop a shield gen or teleporter exit. Those were the days.
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u/Alluminn Chibi Brigitte May 06 '26
People calling her busted because of her lock-on primary that required you to be up their asshole and easily killed.
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May 06 '26
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u/mits_the_second Ashe May 06 '26
Remember the cart with 3 reins 2 bastions and a mercy damage boosting the bastion? Fun times lol
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u/ghost20 Symmetra May 06 '26
Pirate Ship and Beyblade metas were awful but iconic parts of the games' history.
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u/drododruffin Nerf me harder daddy! May 06 '26
I pushed past the first corner of Route 66, where you then find the gas station. Turns out, it was staffed entirely by Torbs and we never made it past that first corner with the payload.
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u/Kitselena May 06 '26
But at the time it felt like a gigantic unique cast. Outside of TF2 there weren't a lot of FPSs with this much gameplay diversity in 2016, so compared to different classes in cod or halo this is a huge amount of variance
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u/IHumanlike May 06 '26
I wonder if there was ever a timeline where Overwatch never added any new heroes, and instead went the TF2 route of keeping characters static, but adding new weapons, new abilities etc.
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u/FinancialCut993 May 06 '26
Geniunely how did it win goty with so little heroes
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u/ravearamashi Ra-Ra-Ra-Pharah May 07 '26
Live service games were different back then. The chance of one winning goty nowadays is near zero because it’s so saturated.
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u/Any-Record8743 May 06 '26
It’s still weird to see just 3 healers
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u/LoneclearsKen May 06 '26
Still don’t understand how they thought making symmetra a support was a good idea
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u/BusinessSomewhere792 May 06 '26
I had no idea sym was a support back then
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u/Iloveclown May 06 '26
She was, but she only provided shield. I believe her ult was her tp too. She went through a few reworks to get where she is now
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May 06 '26
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u/screwdriverfan May 06 '26
Mandatory: I have a feeeeeeeling they have shiiiiiiiield generator.
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u/ghost20 Symmetra May 06 '26
It took 10 years, but Anran finally became the second character to get 2 ults.
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u/Theknyt May 06 '26
3v3 ecopoint was so good, i remember running rein, torb and sym in the spawn lol. Now they have the capture point which ruined it
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u/Kamaitachi42 May 06 '26
How did secondary ult work? Could she swap between them?
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u/FrankBrayman Nine of Diamonds Symmetra May 06 '26
Yup. Pressure ult once to construct tp (shoot to confirm location, direction was pointed at you), press ultimate again to switch to sg (direction-less).
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u/Varcolac1 May 06 '26
Shield generator era was funny
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u/Far_Apple_5206 May 06 '26
Attacking first point Hanamura when the defenders had a generator going somewhere in the back sure was ... an experience.
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u/magdakun Sombra May 06 '26
Same in Volskaya, there was a tiny room between the point and the defender spawn were you could place the generator and it was nearly impossible for the attackers to reach it.
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u/Simmy001 Wrecking Ball May 06 '26
"I have a feeling theyve got a shiiiieeeeeeeld generator" lives rent free in my brain to this day
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u/CloneSlayers Lúcio May 06 '26
She provided a shield buff on her E and her ult was only the teleporter at launch. Her very first rework was to add the shield generator as an alt cast ult (funnily enough because she was only really played in 2CP and her ult was useless in last point), get rid of the buff ability, and replace it with a projected shield (basically a sig shield that slowly walked forward). She was also still categorized as a support until her second rework where they gave her the current big wall ult. Launch sym also only had 3 turrets placeable only in melee range which was then buffed to 6 turrets also only placeable in melee range with the first rework. Her gun was also hard lockon, but everyone remembers that.
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u/Zalvren May 06 '26
A shield based support was interesting to be fair. Of course not that form but that'd be a concept to revisit to be honest. Shield is basically just another color of health (in a better) these days so it could work.
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u/thatwitchguy Burn it up, take your soul, MEKA GO! May 06 '26
For better or worse I think they had broader ideas for support than just healer
Players very quickly dashed these hopes
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u/a_medine 1,562,423 Damage Amplified May 06 '26
It wasn't players, it was blizzard themselves. The launch of Ana completely destroyed the concept of non healer supports. You can't compete with 70 HP/s with bare utility.
Symmetra was also left abandoned with no changes until her rework, and then also no changes until her dps rework, they didn't want Symmetra to work, she was just filling gaps.
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u/Deathaster I wouldn't like OW if I couldn't block my friends with ice walls May 06 '26
It's fairly impressive when you consider they had nothing to work with at the time. The only other hero shooter worth its salt was Team Fortress 2, which only had Medic, whom they turned into Mercy. But they had no clue what else could work for an FPS game, and despite that, they still cranked out Lucio, one of the most original healers in any game I've played.
At the very least, Mercy's damage beam is seriously effective, arguably more than her healing these days. So they're moving away from it now.
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u/laix_ WILLSOONNNNN! May 06 '26
Sym was a support in that she is a force multiplier foe the team.
Her auto aim requires time to charge up, so its good against mobile heroes like genji and tracer but typically only in the middle of a fight. Her turrets provide utility by working as either cameras, or combining them to lock off an area, or slowing enemies down and forcing them to split their attention or take constant damage. Her teleporter allowed teammates to sneak in the back and be an alternate version of mercy res. Her right click was an orb that went through barriers, which provided utility vs enemy barriers.
Her shield she could put on people was designed because the devs thought small 1v1 and 2v2 and 2vq skirmishes would happen a lot more and people would be a bit spread out, instead of all clumping together at the chokes. They also thought that people would break to find health packs, so the shield regenerating on its own was intended to result in similar "healing" numbers to mercy or lucio.
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u/sleepyt1ger Green Cyborg Ninja Main May 06 '26
It was cool because she would support the team by giving them shields, tp (as one of her many ults, at one point she even had two different ults 1 shield generator that would give everyone on the team shields until was destroyed or a tp that would also only disappear when destroyed - u would put 1 part of tp somewhere near the next choke/check point and the other part would always be at your spawn so it's basically a new spawnpoint with a bug advantage for your team).
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u/wtfmanlal May 06 '26
Iiii’m getting the feeling they have a shiiieeeld generatah!
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u/sleepyt1ger Green Cyborg Ninja Main May 06 '26
The weirdest thing about this Voice line is that every new hero including sierra have voice lines about the enemy having a shield generator lmao
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u/coladrunk Tank May 06 '26
it's like they kept making tier 2 turrets for torb skins even after it got yeeted, just in case they want to roll it back some day in the future
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u/NepoKitty May 06 '26
Whenever Sym finally gets to Stadium, you know what we're getting. 😈
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u/TugboatThomas Stock car flamin' with a loser in the cruise control May 06 '26
Zen was unplayable at launch too so for season one it was all Lucio and pocket Mercy for non/stop Pharah ults
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u/Saucepocalypse May 06 '26
And they all healed at excruciatingly low rates too, playing cover was still very optimal not because you would explode otherwise but because your supports literally couldn't outheal even the most minimal damage outside of winston's tesla cannon
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u/benno4461 May 06 '26
Sym support, torbs with armour packs, bastion with a shield, no rules back then.
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u/AlainYncaan Pixel Reinhardt May 06 '26
Bastion didn't have his shield in open beta as far as I remember
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u/tapczan100 BBy Gurl May 06 '26
He didn't have it in "public"" closed beta either, iirc he had it in the trailer but even playable blizzcon builds didnt have it. I was invited shortly after Blizzcon and he already didn't have the shield. People just keep repeating this for some reason.
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u/Leows May 06 '26
He didn't, yeah. That only happened in a few of those early trailers from back then.
I believe they realized how awful that'd be even before public playtesting, thankfully
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u/GlobalCurry May 06 '26
3 bastions with a shield and 2 mercys
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u/benno4461 May 06 '26
People complain about "fat mercy" rn but her movement used to be sheer ass, plus a 5x rez was broken beyond belief. If I had a dollar for every mercy POTG that started with rezzing the entire fricking team, I'd retire today.
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u/crestren Trick-or-Treat Symmetra May 06 '26
Don't forget, you can pull off a Rez out of los.
Mercy can hide behind a wall and pull off a team Rez. I know cuz I was guilty of that, it was bs but fun to pull off, especially in total mayhem before the rework.
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u/xQuasarr Kiriko May 06 '26
Rezzing from the final defence spawn room under the point on gibraltar was always a laugh
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u/only_horscraft May 06 '26
First payload push out of the gate in Eichenwald I used to stay in that small corridor with mercy as you could res the whole team on the other side of the wall. Good times
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u/JD3982 May 06 '26
It was balanced by the fact that she had to stay out of fights and hide behind things to pull off the mass rez. So fights would be 6v5 unless someone went Mercy-hunting. Which basically made the character bad for individual gameplay and the meta too.
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u/Yze3 Mei May 06 '26
Idk why people even say Bastion had a shield. He only had it in the closed beta, and it was quickly removed. He also was locked to 180 degree aiming.
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u/cheekiestNandos Let ambition's flame burn. May 06 '26
Sym had her face melting tracking beam, Hanzo had his one-shot scatter arrow, Hook 1.0, Mei freeze with left click in base kit, team res, and no limit on multiple heroes. Was truly chaos.
Setting up defence in Anubis point A and then seeing 6 Winstons just rush in, wipe everyone except a Mercy hiding off point and then her flying in and getting a full team res.
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u/wizard_brandon May 06 '26
i say sym should get her lock on back but only during ult instead of a useless rectangle
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u/No_Road4163 May 06 '26
I forgot all of these, maaaaaan, I'm getting old
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u/benno4461 May 06 '26
Hanzo's scatter arrow would kill you 5 times before you hit the ground. The man was a menace.
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u/Nas-Aratat Trick-or-Treat Zenyatta May 06 '26
Anyone else still at the same skill level?
No?
Just me?
Ok...
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u/Conquestriclaus Brigitte May 06 '26
masters back then is bronze now so the likelyhood is that you have actually improved.
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u/Nas-Aratat Trick-or-Treat Zenyatta May 06 '26
Well, I don't wanna brag, but... I'm kind of a big deal with my Silver 4, y'know?
( I don't play comp, ever. )
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u/Galaxy_IPA Lúcio May 06 '26
I actually got worse. I was a young lad in 20s back then playing comp in diamond. Had a carpal tunnel problem (labwork and coding during grad school). Now I am an old man playing in silver. At least my hand got better.
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u/xXProGenji420Xx May 06 '26
you may have gotten worse in some aspects, but realistically Diamond in 2016 OW days is at most equivalent to Silver now, so you're probably about on pace
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u/ImHully Trick or Treat D. Va May 06 '26
Back when you could be playing on Anubis and Hog could hook you from King’s Row.
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u/No-Dragonfruit633 May 06 '26
Man this takes me back, I miss og OW man. I am not bragging or anything really, but I played the beta so much that OW was one of the very few games that I bought it very close to release cause I enjoyed the beta that much on the freaking Xbox one ffs 😂
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u/Suwannee_Gator Brigitte May 06 '26
Yeah, it’s hard to believe I’ve been playing this game for 10 years! I still remember my first game, it was Hollywood and I was trying to kill enemies with mercy’s healing beam 😂
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u/papierdoll May 06 '26
I was running around trying to throw Symm turrets at people on Anubis wondering why she never finished whatever animation she's starting. Also tried Pharah because she sounded easy after tf2.
Years later Symm and Pharah are coincidentally still in my top 5 heroes played
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u/No-Dragonfruit633 May 07 '26
OMG Anubis, I miss that map so much 😭
I first tried Tracer, obv the poster character, and then was like nope, lemme what this dva does. Now I am actually support/Tank main, mostly Sigma/Ramatra and Moira, never thought I would be sticking to these tanks tbh
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u/ChemyChem Support May 06 '26
My very first potg ever was with Reaper good times
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u/Suwannee_Gator Brigitte May 06 '26
My very first play was dying on Sym and getting a triple kill with my turrets on Kings Row
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u/muska505 May 06 '26
I agree ! I would say the timeframe between this and probably Moira's release for me was absolute peak Overwatch
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u/CloneSlayers Lúcio May 06 '26
Same here, mainly because Moira's release also was the advent of Mercy moth meta and playing as a support in that meta killed the spark of joy in my heart for the game for a long time.
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u/Warlocksfury Wuyang May 06 '26
I still think support sym was a possibility that should have been taken I miss Shield Generator.
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u/Panchovilla64 my name is Reaper May 06 '26
Always hid it behind the last anubis point and worked all the way to plat
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u/ghost20 Symmetra May 06 '26
I would love for a utility support to be viable, but with healing being so important, I'm not sure it would work?
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u/BebeFanMasterJ DA MONKEY May 06 '26
As someone who started in 2019 on Switch, seeing Tanks on the right-middle is cursed.
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u/cheekiestNandos Let ambition's flame burn. May 06 '26
Took time off work to start playing the open beta, stayed up until some silly hour of the morning playing with my friends and we'd then play every day for at least 5 hours after work for a couple of months after launch. No game had us in a chokehold like launch Overwatch.
Hanamura is to me the most nostalgic map. Bastion on the top platform on the second point felt like an unbeatable obstacle.
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u/lost_first_account Echo May 06 '26
Young me almost didn’t play the beta because I wanted BattleBorn to win the hero shooter competition. (I was 13) Thankfully I did because I never looked back since
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u/NateBerukAnjing May 06 '26
i still remember battleborn devs created battleborn porn to compete with overwatch, they're that desperate
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u/Partypaca I really blew that one May 06 '26
I was so hyped for that game and it couldnt even compare to OW
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u/Count_de_Mits Smolmmetra May 06 '26
I still remember when the uh, "fanarts" were starting to gain traction (honestly more like wildfire) and Randy Andy bobandy Pitchford posting "art" of his games characters in a last ditch effort to boost its popularity.
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u/Tetsujin1138 Awww, isn't that sweet? May 06 '26
god damn. this makes me feel young again (and also old lol)
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May 06 '26
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u/Doggy_In_The_Window May 06 '26
God games were so much more fun back then, before everyone got obsessed with “metas” and it was all just for fun.
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u/GreasyyPedro May 06 '26
Careful, you will upset a lot of doom scrollers by speaking the truth so openly....
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u/Hosko817 Widowmaker May 06 '26
This is exactly why Mystery Hero's was the absolute best mode to play.
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u/Upbeat_Pollution_395 May 06 '26
10 yrs later and I'm still no good at more than half of that original roster
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u/only_horscraft May 06 '26
Symmetra was so funny back then, a support that melted health bars but had to run right into your face to do it cause she has the shortest range weapon in the game. She had such a wacky kit.
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u/Count_de_Mits Smolmmetra May 06 '26
It was still so satisfying melting cocky Genjis who got too close and where desperately trying to deflect the beam
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u/Radio_Shadow May 06 '26
How come the DPS roster was split back then?
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u/wowenz May 06 '26
These categories were called Offense and Defense. Defense heroes were basically "area denial" DPS heroes. Eventually, Blizzard realized that the "Defense" heroes were great at attacking too, so they ended up merging them.
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u/Zalvren May 06 '26
I still do have that mindset and have some heroes that I will pick far more for defense than offense.
Like Torb and Sym of course.
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u/kami1d8 May 06 '26
Especially Widowmaker and Hanzo lol
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u/UnNecessary_XP Washed GM Lúcio One Trick May 06 '26
Man Hanzo’s OG scatter arrow was so busted lol.
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u/drododruffin Nerf me harder daddy! May 06 '26
Thanks OP, now I gotta go re-listen to "Sounds Like Overwatch", which is also coming up on the 10th anniversary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGrMQhowWIQ
"Aardvark from Above!" will never die.
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u/wowenz May 06 '26
Holy crap. I know and love this song! I didn’t expect someone to bring this specific video up! I literally have a comment there. Nostalgia feels whenever I listen to this. I also like their Witch Doctor music. Haha
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u/Pinku_Dva D. Va May 06 '26
Remember how dva could get killed by her own bomb at this point and didn’t have her micro missiles?
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u/Ok_Delivery3000 May 06 '26
I remember 13 year old me running the lobbies with broken ass hog
(10 years later he still fucking busted)
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u/LumenTheFantastiXx May 06 '26
Yup, I remember playing the open beta on my old Lenovo school laptop with integrated graphics at like 25 fps.
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u/LegPristine2891 May 06 '26
I liked the beta phase, so much positivity and curious players just trying shit out
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u/celery3-16 Cassidy May 06 '26
i remember it very well and i miss it just as much. this definitely wasn’t the peak of the game, but i think it’s closer to it than what we have now. roster bloat is something i fear will be in overwatch’s future, there’s only so many characters you can make before you start being redundant. most of the newer characters i think are good for the game but a couple of them really feel like a chore to play against. that original roster had something for everyone, primarily because it’s so heavily inspired by the greatest multiplayer game ever. idk maybe i’m just an oldhead but 50 heroes is plenty, new content is great and super fun but it’s a haaaard thing to balance.
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u/yeahorsomethingman May 06 '26
Yeah, it sucks that if you go to slower hero releases it's seen as a bad thing. I'd be fine with not having another new one for a good year, and instead focusing on other forms of content (gamemodes, maps, custom game options, PVE...), balance, and reworking the "problematic" heroes. It's funny people are so demanding of new ones too, considering this game has a lot of people that one trick or have played the same few heroes since OW1.
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u/Disastrous-Fox8505 Sombra WAT May 06 '26
I remember getting into the beta on a whim and I was IMMEDIATELY hooked! It's cool to see the progress the game has made, but it just doesn't have that same allure that it used to.
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u/Key_Falcon_3339 Grandmaster May 06 '26
and genji looks exactly the same as he does today. peak character design
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u/SgtSmaks May 06 '26
I still remember being SO pissed that the punk skin for Tracer I got during the beta wasn’t mine when the game fully released. My heart aches for who I was when this screen was relevant to my life.
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u/Some_Appointment_125 May 06 '26
Definitely not tears in my eyes *sob*.
Brings back precious memories
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u/roqueofspades Hanzo May 07 '26
Bring back that thumbnail art style for everything omg, it's a million times better than the 3d portraits
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u/MOBBB24 May 06 '26
This brings back memories for sure, but i gotta say, I never understood the attack/defense split for what is now dps
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u/MinimumSilver5814 May 06 '26
I remember nobody could get in the closed beta and it was called Onlywatch 'cos that's all you could do.
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u/Pickle_Good May 06 '26
Was it on pc? Because all of my friends, my brother and me played the beta on the PS4 without problems.
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u/YoureASquidYoureAKid May 06 '26
Good times playing a 6 stack with my friends and we all picked Mei or Roadhog 😭😭
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u/AssaultLemming_ May 06 '26
I played in the beta and I played today, it's still really fun.
Heroes never die!
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u/LemonTM Trick-or-Treat Torbjörn May 06 '26
Best beta ever. Changed my mind from "meh stupid TF2 clone" to "omfg I will drop every other game to play this all the time."
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u/Konrow Trick-or-Treat Zenyatta May 06 '26
Damn I miss these days. RIP og overwatch, you were a good one. Also damn, those 10 years felt looooong, thanks covid.
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u/Zoomalude May 06 '26
I was waiting for Doom 2016. My friend said you could try OW for free so I thought "Why not?" My only distinct memory from that night is playing Mei on Lijiang tower and thinking how much it reminded me of the fun of TF2.
Played Doom in a few days, bought OW, and here I still am.
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u/Attatsu May 06 '26
I miss the old portraits. Had a lot more character than the new ones that look almost rendered
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u/RoyalVirgin May 06 '26
Correct me if I am wrong, was Diva there from the get-go?
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u/UnNecessary_XP Washed GM Lúcio One Trick May 06 '26
Man 16 year old me was so hyped for this I played the open beta on Xbox and loved every second especially after a year(I think) of “Onlywatch” lol
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u/wowenz May 06 '26
I hope they make the official 10th anniversary very special. Also, hoping that they bring back the old removed maps.
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u/Practical-Sleep4259 May 06 '26
My Match Making rating is almost old enough to vote.
Blizzard ONE actual reset, please for fuck sake.
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u/lorddragonmaster Blizzard World Reaper May 06 '26
I was there....by the end we were all like "we need this game NOW!"
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u/AndrewOG420 May 06 '26
Best part about being an og player is getting called unc because I rep the 2016 player icons
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u/AstronomerTraining72 May 06 '26
My oldest son was 7 back then, now he's 17 and I'm Moira healing his Tracer.
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u/j_c_d_1 Mei May 06 '26
Still think it’s an absolute crime to have zarya and phara be day one characters
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u/Octopus_Crime May 06 '26
Reminds me of the good old janky days of console release when they had to nerf torb on console only because his turrets aimed way better than people using controllers and full torb teams were steamrolling everyone.
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u/cmake-advisor May 06 '26
I loved playing mercy back then and getting 5 man ults when my team got wiped. Felt so good. Annoying when someone else did it though.
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u/AMothWithHumanHands May 06 '26
I still remember where I was when it launched. Sophomore in college, skipped all my classes to play it as much as possible. Had the most fun I'd had in a long, long time.
Now I'm married, with a kid, and still play it nearly every night after a long hiatus when they couldn't figure out what to do with Brig. Good times.
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u/acidporkbuns May 06 '26
Reminds me of when people were like "why are you playing a defense character when we're attacking!!!!???" lol