Why the Overwatch League deserves more of your time
Ahead of the last monthly tournament and upcoming Grand Final, here's why you should tune into the Overwatch League.
Hello friends!
Sports are officially overtaking the landscape once again, thanks to the — so far — successful returns of the NBA and NHL over the past few weeks. In this edition of Patch Notes, however, I’d like to take a moment to talk about a league that’s mostly kept itself running during the shutdowns of the last spring: the Overwatch League. I’ve been a fan of the OWL since its inception, and I’m here to tell you that now is the best time to get in on the bandwagon. Let’s dive in!
Before January 2018, I had no desire to play an online multiplayer video game. Most, if not all, of my enjoyment of video games came from playing single-player narrative-driven experiences. Sure, I enjoyed playing rounds of Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart with my friends, but playing against random people online in a competitive setting just wasn’t my thing.
That was the case, up until I became a fan of the Philadelphia Fusion during the first season of the Overwatch League. I became aware of the Fusion’s existence in late 2017 due to the team’s shared ownership under Comcast Spectacor with the Philadelphia Flyers. The Fusion wear the same colors as the Flyers do, and even opted for the same naming convention (Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia Fusion sound quite similar, don’t they?) to tie them even closer to one another.
Even though I had very limited experience with the game of Overwatch, I wanted to give it a shot because well, it was a video game directly related to one of my favorite sports teams. I was intrigued by the overlap, and was curious if Philadelphia’s first major jump into esports would amount to anything.
And well, it turned me into an Overwatch League fan within the first few weeks of its inaugural season.
If you’re a sports fan, the Overwatch League will feel familiar to you. Currently, there are 20 teams spread across North America, Europe, and Asia, with each team representing a city in the same vein as a traditional sports league would. Before coronavirus, the league had shifted to a home-stand style of play for the third season, where fans would pack venues to watch teams play over a weekend. Now, and likely for the foreseeable future, the league has shifted to online play to keep the games going even without fans.
Overwatch League broadcasts feel like traditional sports broadcasts would. Commentators (called casters in esports) narrate the action in your typical two-person broadcast, with varying in-game camera angles and overlaid graphics to complete the very professional-looking package. If you’re coming from traditional sports, the color-coded visuals and player icons to denote hero picks and status offer just enough aid to assist in your comprehension of the game without too much clutter.
As a game, however, Overwatch has… a lot going on, especially for newcomers. The game itself is a six versus six class-based shooter, where the primary focus for both teams is to capture an objective or move a payload, depending on the map you’re playing on.
Currently in Overwatch, teams play with two tanks (your bulky frontline space makers), two supports (the healers), and two DPS (the damage dealers) from a selection of 32 heroes. Overwatch differs from a battle royale shooter such as Fortnite in that each hero in the game has different abilities and ultimates at their disposal. Some abilities turn characters invisible, some turn them into a literal ball that rolls around the map. It’s quirky, it’s got the visuals of a Pixar movie, and it can be just as exciting — if not more-so — than traditional sports.
It’s hard to explain the game of Overwatch over a written medium, which is why this weekend’s matches should be appointment viewing if you’re even remotely interested in giving this league a chance. This weekend is the Countdown Cup, the last major tournament of the season before the playoffs leading up to the Grand Final in September. So far this season, the tournaments have produced the best games of the year, from shocking upsets to a down-to-the-wire seven map final in the Summer Showdown.
If you’re a sports fan who has to root for their local team no matter what, the spread of North American teams to root for covers a fair bit of ground. Major sports cities such as Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, and Houston have franchises to latch onto. Canada as well has two teams, from Toronto and Vancouver respectively, for any die-hard Canadian hockey fans looking to take the plunge.
However, if you want the best of the best to convince you why this sport is worth watching, the top four teams in the tournament in Philadelphia, Paris, San Francisco, and Florida will be the ones to make time for in this elimination tournament. Each of these teams has top-tier DPS players that routinely make “how did they do that?” plays and are often the backbones of their respective teams in must-win situations.
There’s a lot to love about Overwatch as a whole and the Overwatch League in general. If you’re a fan of high-intensity sports — such as playoff hockey — the Overwatch League delivers some really tense, nail-biting moments that honestly have become some of my favorite moments in sports history.
Seriously, I’m going to remember the heroics of Josue “Eqo” Corona during the Fusion’s Summer Showdown final match for a long, long time. I’ve never seen a more clutch play than the one at the end of this highlight reel, where he manages to stay alive and get seven kills (yes, seven!) in the 27 second push that allows the Fusion to continue the map when their backs were against the wall.
With a weekend’s worth of tournament matches and the season playoffs just around the corner, there’s sure to be more clutch Overwatch plays made in the weeks to come. These games will likely be some of the best that the Overwatch League has to offer, and if you can make time this weekend to dip your toe into the esports waters for the first time, you absolutely should tune in.
Thank you for reading Patch Notes! If you enjoyed this, share it with your friends and on social media. If you just found this page, take a look at the archive and subscribe if you find something to your liking. Questions, comments, and article ideas can be sent to Mary Clarke on Twitter or at mclarkenhs@gmail.com.