Overwatch 2 beta pulls in mixed community reception

Overwatch 2’s beta has arrived, and the community has finally gotten their hands on the team-based shooter – but the reaction has been a mixed bag of emotions from fans.

Players have been looking forward to Overwatch‘s sequel since the game was first revealed at Blizzcon in 2019.

Since Overwatch 1 hadn’t gotten a massive update since 2020, fans became anxious awaiting the game and the multitude of changes to its characters and maps.

But the wait came to an end as the Overwatch 2 beta was released on April 26, 2022. Interestingly enough, the reaction to the new experience was mixed.

Blizzard

Fans have applauded Blizzard for the charcter reworks but they have had criticism for the lack of support changes.

Community reacts to Overwatch 2 beta

Overwatch 2’s beta placed a spotlight entirely on its most popular game mode: PvP. Through this mode, fans were able to experience all of Blizzard’s changes to the team-based shooter and get a taste of what direction the game was now headed.

But with the changes and, in some cases, lack of changes, the community had a lot to say – both positive, negative, and everything in-between.

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A stream-grab posted by Twitter user HUN2R showed streamer Myth playing in the newly released beta and addressing the seemingly controversial fact that Overwatch 2 isn’t actually a sequel, but more like a significant update.

“You know what’s funny? The Overwatch community is acting like they didn’t know 2 wasn’t going to be a new game,” said Myth as he addressed the community’s criticisms.

Myth then says: “The devs said it was going to be this; how are you guys complaining?” right before dying to a Reinhardt and then seemingly changing his mind, siding with the community’s criticisms.

Streamer emongg offered his overwhelmingly positive feelings on the beta, tweeting: “Today was amazing! I had a ton of fun on the first day of the OW2 beta. Here’s a clip of me playing Reinhardt.”

In the aforementioned clip, emongg can be seen terrorizing the opposing team and picking up a 5-player killstreak in the process.

On the other side of the reception spectrum, streamer sleepy offered his thoughts on the beta, which were majority negative.

“Not to be a negative lil crybaby b****, but man, it’s so disappointing and honestly unacceptable that the ENTIRE support role gets zero changes,” said sleepy in his scathing critique aimed at Blizzard.

“[We’re] left out with our thumbs in our a**** while everyone else goes to go Disneyland with new reworks and heroes.”

Following up his criticisms aimed at the lack of changes made for support characters, he also mentioned that the reworks done to Doom and Orisa were well done as Blizzard answered the community’s pleas for those characters to be changed.

• Read More: Overwatch 2 April 26 PVP beta full patch notes

As of April 27, 2022, the second day of the beta is currently underway, so it’ll be interesting to see if the mixed reactions to the game’s new direction continue in the coming days… Or if the community begins to sway overwhelmingly positive or negative when its all said and done.