Professional Overwatch League players are the first to go hands-on with the highly-anticipated Overwatch 2 Alpha. While all details are supposed to be confidential for now, a few early impressions and amusing reactions have already slipped through.
After years of waiting, Overwatch 2 is finally real — to some degree.
Ahead of the first closed Beta in April, professional players and Blizzard employees currently have access to an early Alpha build of the game. This unique rollout intends to give Overwatch League talent some crucial practice time before the 2022 season gets underway.
Given its top-secret launch just for the pros, everything is under embargo. From gameplay streams to general impressions, pros aren’t allowed to publicly share anything from their time with the Alpha.
Breaking an embargo typically comes with some hefty consequences, but that hasn’t stopped a few select comments and amusing tweets from popping up over the past few days.
First to potentially void the Overwatch 2 embargo was a man of few words on social media, Samuel ‘s9mm’ Santos from the San Francisco Shock.
“I’m already bored,” the 19-year-old DPS player said on Twitter just hours into the Alpha.
There’s no telling with absolute certainty his comment related to Overwatch 2, though the timing clearly lines up. With the post having since been taken down, it’s entirely plausible he was in fact referring to his time with the new content.
Next came a hilarious tweet from LA Gladiators Offtank Indy ‘Space’ Halpern. While he didn’t necessarily reveal key details on the game itself, or give any impressions, he may have let slip that certain players are already having a rough time.
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“How’d you get avoided in the [Overwatch 2] Alpha?” Space said. “It ain’t even Beta yet you already avoided?”
Funnily enough, former Overwatch League Vice President Jon Spector replied with a meme of his own, joking that Space had been dropped due to his tweet breaking the embargo.
— Jon Spector (@Spex_J) March 15, 2022
In terms of more solid impressions on early Alpha gameplay, He ‘Molly’ Chengzhi of the Guangzhou Charge made two specific claims during a March 15 Q&A.
Not only did they argue “the pace of the game has slowed down,” by Molly also suggested Overwatch 2 “feels less friendly to Support players,” according to a translation on Reddit.
Obviously, it’s still extremely early into the very first testing phase of Overwatch 2. It’s worth keeping in mind that things could change a great deal before select players around the world get hands-on time in the upcoming Beta.
If various tidbits are already appearing online, however, it could just be a matter of time before more substantial leaks follow suit. We’ll be sure to keep you posted on any further developments during the Overwatch 2 Alpha.