Last week, Overwatch 2 made its way to Steam. However, the game became the worst user-reviewed Steam game of all time with the majority of 118,000 user reviews being “overwhelmingly negative.” The game hasn’t seen the same positive reception as when the first game which released back in 2016. This may be due to a number of different factors, the price of the microtransactions and the cancellation of Overwatch 2’s planned PvE Hero mode to name a few. But, there is also something else at play. Analyst Daniel Ahmad notes that over two-thirds of the game’s Steam reviews are written in Chinese, with the majority of them being negative. Many of the reviews echo the majority of the rest of the world, complaining about the pricing of the microtransactions and the cancellation of the Hero mode. According to Ahmad, these reviews also reflect larger feelings of frustration that have gone unanswered since January when Blizzard and NetEase’s licensing agreement ended suspending game services for several Blizzard games including Overwatch making them unplayable for Chinese players.
The breakup between Blizzard and NetEase was messy, with both companies issuing statements accusing the other as being the reason a new agreement or contract extension couldn’t be reached. Blizzard games are still largely inaccessible in China as a result, as Blizzard searches for a new distribution partner in the region for its games.
NetEase’s president of global investments, Simon Zhu, said earlier this year that the shutdown of Blizzard’s Chinese game servers was “such a sad moment.”
“The biggest victim would be players in China who live and breathe in those worlds,” Zhu said. “I also know how hard it will feel for those Blizzard developers who have spent all their passion and talent to build those amazing worlds. I hope all those valuable memories never fade away.”
Overwatch 2 on Steam is the first time Chinese players can play the game and voice their opinions on the issue on a global stage. The problem with this is that players have to start from scratch and make new accounts while are leaving players frustrated.
In the end, it’s clear that OW [Overwatch] was and still is a popular IP in China,” Ahmad said. “But the string of events starting from the shutdown at the beginning of the year has led to pent-up frustration being let out all at once.”
Regardless of Overwatch 2’s new title as the worst user-reviewed game of all time, the game has found success on the platform. The game peaked with over 75,000 players following its launch and is currently among Steam’s top-20 played games. The launch on Steam coincided with the launch of Season 6, Invasion, which brings in Blizzard’s replacement for the Hero Mode, PvE Story Missions and the new Support Hero Illari.