The timer for Overwatch 2‘s Season 19 has already started and the noise is increasing by the second, besides, Blizzard has announced the tremendous developer update that will unveil the entire ghostly stuff coming our way. Associate Game Director Alec Dawson together with his team did a live stream that disclosed the upcoming Haunted Masquerade mode, Stadium changes, and Season 19’s Mythic skins – nonetheless, players have already been split regarding some of the modifications.
One of the biggest highlights was the Haunted Masquerade mode which according to the developers it will do just that, the game will be very Halloween atmosphere. With the game announcing “tricks and treats” for the players, honestly, it seems really fun for a seasonal event. The mode appears to be a bitter concoction of trick and treat through the current gameplay, however, the specifics are still rather vague apart from the masquerade’s theme. But what exactly does a haunted masquerade mean when it comes to Overwatch? Sooner or later, we will know.
Nevertheless, the real conflict began to unfold when the players started submitting their complaints about the mythic skins to Blizzard through the comments. One user by the name of Dunk3ll quite straightforwardly asked if the developers were aware that players do not want the evolving mythic skins and it is a choice they have made to keep them that way only with a little change of character until then. Oof, that’s a pretty harsh call on Blizzard?? The players’ response was such that it was very clear this matter is one of the major complaints of the community.
The argument over the evolving mythic skins started off extremely fast, ImagineFydem pointed out that Lifeweaver’s mythic had two levels where only VFX changes were made, and thus, he was claiming that under the new system players are “paying for less.” But OSK_Oak then replied to this with “at least we have the options instead of the obvious best-looking one,” meaning that not everyone hates the evolving concept. It’s like the community is split between what it wants, but still, they are quite annoyed about something.
At the same time, the discontent about Kiriko’s skin peaked. A considerable number of players were requesting Blizzard to stop giving skins to Kiriko. TanksGirl949 went “Can yall stop giving kiriko skins please? Lend the other hero’s a chance—stop playing favorites.” Spideywolfz was even more dramatic, going all caps “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CAN YOU STOP MAKING KIRI SKINS FOR A SEASON. EVERYONE IS TIRED OF IT” typing loudly. Clearly, the main problem here is that other characters are being neglected for Kiriko and the players are indeed very much tired of that.
Stadium updates not only got some attention but also some of that attention was negative. One player claimed that this was “the beta for stadium” and asked why they would create another mode similar to it when Stadium was already getting all the updates. It was like, what really is the point of having two modes that are practically the same? That was indeed a pretty good question.
Then there was this random drama in the replies where wired_ow got upset with someone complaining about PVE content, telling them “supera o pve bicho” which can be roughly translated to “get over the PVE already.” The Portuguese-speaking community was pretty involved in a heated argument about whether or not people should still be upset about the cancellation of PVE content. It’s as if that ship has sailed, people.
However, some of the complaints were just quite funny, to be honest. Joonreii was exclaiming “NO DRIVE POINTS FOR DRAW?!?!” which appears to be a rather specific complaint about the ranking system. And Kryon was just challenging “Show balancing if u have balls,” which… alright then. Meanwhile, m3owingg was asking “why the hell are we adding torb” as if Torbjorn had personally committed a wrong against them or something.
Ramattra’s mythic skin being a part of the premium pass not only caused a question but also drew some side-eye with RBonfuoco describing it as a “bad idea” after a long wait for a Ramattra skin. And clerioric was saying “stop giving reind a skin every season,” since Reinhardt gets too much love anyway.
But then I lost track of what I was saying. Oh yes, Season 19. Complaining notwithstanding, it seems there’s a bit of excitement starting to grow. The Haunted Masquerade definitely looks captivating, and the Stadium updates might elevate the gameplay to a higher level. The mythic skin saga is total chaos, but at least as per raiden_kuniii, Blizzard is trying to hasten the process with the statement, “They are trying to get it done quickly so we don’t have to wait forever to get a mythic skin for our favorite characters.”
Thus, Season 19 has turned out to be another classic Overwatch scenario — some cool new content, a lot of community drama, and Blizzard in between trying to please everyone while in fact pleasing no one. The Haunted Masquerade is about to take off and you can be certain that players will either be there to partake in the ghostly fun or to complain about the skin decisions that Blizzard made this time around. It’s the same old story in the realm of PlayStation and Xbox.
