Overwatch fans slam Blizzard over “garbage” Summer Games event

It’s summer and once again Overwatch has begun its Summer Games event. While the skins have been a big hit, like always, the player base is beginning to feel the event is too repetitive and similar to previous years.

A post on r/Overwatch titled “Four years in and ‘Summer Games’ is still just ‘Summer Game’” has been upvoted over 7,000 times. The post title is a reference to the fact Lucio Ball – the big exclusive game mode of the event – has remained the only game mode since the event’s inception. 

“I don’t mean to insult Jeff and the team. I know you guys wake up every day and go to work trying to make something that we will find entertaining. But what you keep providing for the Summer ‘Games’ isn’t it,” the post reads. 

“Between Year 1 and Year 2 you made some gameplay changes. Sure. That’s fine. Lucioball was well received Year 1. Refine it and see how it goes. But Year 2 to Year 3 just had Competitive. That’s not interesting. And now Year 3 to Year 4 just offers weekly challenges. That’s new, but it’s not interesting,” user thepuppeter wrote.

• Read More: Overwatch Summer Games skins revealed: Surf ‘n’ Splash Torbjorn, American Reaper, and more

“Winter Wonderland got a completely new minigame between Year 1 and Year 2 due to player response. How is it, that after 4 years, there’s still been nothing done in response to Summer Games?” the post continued. 

Overwatch fans are loving the Summer Games skins – but the event itself not so much

One reason for this could be the fact that the original Summer Games event started on August 2, three days before the 2016 Olympic Games. Skins for the first event were more geared towards each character’s country of origin.

•  Read More: Torbjörn’s Summer Games skin is an important Overwatch milestone

YouTuber Blame the Controller also voiced his displeasure on Twitter. 

“Here’s the thing about @PlayOverwatch #SummerGames being garbage. If @Blizzard_Ent has something big to release later then they should have come out and said as much,” the YouTuber complained.

He suggested that Blizzard should at least keep players informed with their plans, and make some promises that there will be better content to come, to save prolonged disappointment.

Team UK GM and content creator Stylosa made a video on his UnitLost channel voicing his disappointment with the event.  

“This year the amount of skins we got is very low,” he said. “We do have the insane Torbjorn skin… but that’s all we really get. Then we get the three mini weekly events. The current one that’s running right now, you can unlock the amazing, and I’m not saying this sarcastically, it is a pretty good skin, the American Reaper skin. You just have to win 9 games… but are you going to play Lucio Ball? I mean, am I going to play Lucio Ball? I played it to record footage for this video, but that’s kind of it.” 

This continues a pattern of Overwatch events not feeling fresh. Even the last Archives event, which did provide a new story mission in the form of Storm Rising was criticized by the community as not being long enough or as engaging as previous missions.

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With rumours of Overwatch 2 being announced at Blizzcon in November, it will be interesting to see what the future holds is for Overwatch’s event schedule.

The next event, unless Blizzard changes its release schedule or introduces something new, will most likely be Halloween Terror.