It’s been over four years since the launch of Overwatch, and it remains to be a popular shooter to this date. However, it’s slowly being overshadowed by the amount of many free-to-play shooters nowadays.
Blizzard has solid plans for Overwatch and its sequel. However, before they proceed to any of this, the developer may want to change the way the game is accessed. Instead of making it a premium game, many fans suggest that it might be time to make the game free-to-play. Here are a few reasons why.
Stiff competition
Free-to-play battle royales and shooters like Valorant, Fornite, Apex Legends, and Ubisoft’s upcoming Hyper Scape make it hard for premium shooters like Blizzard’s own to stand out. If Blizzard were to make the game into a free-to-play title, more players would have their attention on it, making it more capable of holding its own against today’s popular shooters.
Player base is dropping
Queuing for matches have become considerably longer, as compared to when the game launched. Even after the addition of Role Queues in the game, players still have to wait for several minutes before they can get on a match.
The problem is pretty obvious—the player base is not as big as it used to be. If Blizzard makes the game free-to-play, then a lot of others will be able to join. This benefits not only those who don’t have the game, but also those who are still playing despite the abysmal wait times.
A sequel is in the works
Blizzard is already working on Overwatch 2. Since being revealed last year, we’ve yet to know more about the upcoming title. We do know that the content of the sequel will still be available for those who have the first game. The difference is that those that don’t have the sequel will not access certain content like the Story Mode.
What better way to increase hype for the sequel than by making its predecessor free-to-play? This will be a good move on the part of Blizzard as it could encourage newcomers to buy the sequel.
Overwatch is far from being what many call as a dead game. Its competitive and non-competitive community is still pretty much alive. Blizzard may want to keep the ball rolling by making sure that everyone can access the game. As evident by the spike of players during their free weekends, the game needs to go free-to-play.
Image used courtesy of Overwatch/YouTube