Earlier today, Overwatch’s official Twitter account announced a new event featuring NBA star Luka Dončić, and it seems the whole community is buzzing about it. My favorite shoutout was towards the news of a new event, which also included Luka Dončić’s collaboration. However, the coolest part of the announcement was, in fact, the rewards. Not just cool, but way beyond my expectations, I am talking about seventy-seven WOW loot boxes. If I am lying, I urge you to reconsider your life at this point. SEVENTY. SEVEN.
With the event ending on the 15th of September, users will be invited to ‘Play like Luka. Win like Luka’ where they will be tasked with completing an exclusive Cassidy build on the Stadium map. While the other users seem to be focusing on the rest of the community, praising the original tweet for the numerous basketball and fire emojis, the true appreciation is being thrown over the event’s replies, which are inundated with comments describing people’s emotions.
For real, there was nothing else to earn, and the number of boxes was wild in its own way, but even that was nothing compared to the flood of reactions, and it is certainly second in line. After an incredibly excessive quantity of expressions shock, everything tweeted into the chaos after stunned looks included one: lip blue. The tweet expressing the collective sentiment towards the seventy loot boxes was, as perfect as you could get in a tweet with a GIF SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR LOOTBOXES, SPECTACULAR SPECTACULAR, with yellow letters.
SPOILER: The entirety of this was chaos, and EVERYONE WAS LIKE what the hell. SLOWLY REALIZING THERE WERE thatNekogal became one of the few because of some slight detachment from the brutal outburst scream, because not everyone can understand that for the most part, there is a TEMPTING dumbFOUND FOR. Absolutely shareneash.
That is not even close to the entire reaction there is a lot of excitement too. “77!! Wtff, now I’m hyped!!!!!” is @OfficialXert19’s tweet, and that is definitely the vibe for the community. Another Overwatch player, @_SHAD0WM00N, said, “77????????? guess I gotta learn cassidy” which is an opinion shared by many Overwatch players; they struggle with the cowboy hero for many reasons. Out of all the miscellaneous invites to jump in at the moment, I would say @NutDatDeepToo’s “Welp time to hop on this game” is the only one representing the community’s attitude.
Commenting on this particular announcement, people have different reactions. There is always a question mark about the catch, with a Twitter user @ItemsENABLED, tweeting “There’s no way a normal person like me will get the 77 loot boxes. I bet it’s either insanely hard or will take ridiculous amounts of grinding,” which is what a lot of people are thinking. In my opinion, this is an incredibly valid point, but as far as I know, Blizzard Entertainment is not the type of company to just give away loot boxes, and the assumption that there will be some challenges to earn all of them seems reasonable.
It also seems pertinent to mention that the challenges need you to play with a specific Cassidy build on the Stadium map. Saying, “I sure hope I don’t have to play Stadium to earn those,” @Jocic_CJA, implying that the map may not be loved by everyone. And, @nunyabizduh brought up an interesting logistical problem: “Wait, so we need to use his Stadium build with Cass, but we no longer have mirror matches so like… how is anyone going to do this?” This is indeed a valid point related to the game’s changed mechanics. Role lock has made it difficult to guarantee playing the required hero and the required map.
Addressing conspiracy theories, @oneoftroyesgrls wonders, “lowkey thinking they might have taken shop skins out of the boxes because there is no way they’re giving away hundreds of boxes.”. Players are wondering if Blizzard tweaked the loot box pool prior to this event. Players like @anfeetvs are begging, “please tell me you updated the lootbox pool PLEASE please PLEASE.”
No game event would be complete without a set of complaints. Overwatch users are notorious for complaining about any hero’s “too much spotlight” and @NatoTheWeeb being called the character “beyond obnoxious to play against” is merely another addition.
By far, the feeling conveyed is of gratitude and celebration. @alanstheory exclaimed, “EVERYONE SAY THANK YOU LUKA DONČIC,” while @luxale_ expressed gratitude to Luka, specifically for his jersey number 77, which is the number of loot boxes being handed out as a nicety for the collaboration.
So what does this all mean? It means Overwatch is pulling out all the stops for this crossover. 77 loot boxes are an amount of free content completely unheard of. This is a fantastic reason for players to log in and participate in the game during the event period. Whether the grind for challenges will be enjoyable or tedious is unknown at the time, but one thing is sure: everyone is talking about it. The community is energized, but the group is filled with confusion, excitement, and skepticism at the same time. This is messy, but it’s beautiful. It’s a day in the life of Overwatch for the time being. Now, if I may, I need to go practice my Cassidy shots on Stadium since I can’t earn these boxes passively.
