They say that 2026 is the new 2016, and when it comes to my relationship with Overwatch, that is most certainly the case. I've fallen in love with the hero shooter all over again after its recent revamp—where Blizzard dropped the "2", gave us five new heroes to mess around with, and the promise of a year-long narrative arc that'll hopefully make up a little for its lack of previously-promised PvE content.
It feels bizarre to live in a world where I'm once again looking forward to booting up the game every evening for a few skirmishes, but I've genuinely been loving everything about Overwatch again. Well, except one teeny-tiny thing: Conquest, its grand, five-week event that seemingly expects me to min-max the absolute crap outta my playtime in the worst possible way.
I've found it a huge stain on what has otherwise been a very exciting and cool time to be playing this game again. It certainly doesn't help that the first week was mired by a progression bug that caused most people to be locked out of rewards—though that was something Blizzard thankfully fixed by doling them out anyway.
It's a strange event, honestly. Talon versus Overwatch, with two reward tracks and a set of dailies for each side. At the end of the week, whichever side was more popular gets an additional little reward sent out to everyone. It feels like a test of which side your loyalties lie, but it's an event that also actively encourages switching back and forth to claim everything you can. Something that's made even more obvious by Blizzard offering the "Double Agent" title to anyone who completes enough tracks on both sides.
Once you've nabbed the cosmetics for the week, you can then continue completing quests throughout the week for bonus loot boxes, with the rewards track culminating in one legendary loot box reward. That's a pretty sweet deal… but it requires a bizarre level of optimisation that it's making me not want to play for just how scummy it feels.
You can't conquer 'em all
That's because the event is set up in a way where you have to play every single day. Which is fine, broadly speaking, except that even then it's a complete pain in the ass. Four daily quests for 100 points each. Each reward takes 175 points to obtain. Don't feel like playing one day, or don't naturally hit a handful of challenges in your day-to-day play? Oops, good luck getting that legendary loot box.
Despite playing the game every single day last week, I came up to the weekly reset 50 points short of nabbing the legendary loot box. Why? Because I used up some dailies (which reset before weeklies) to finish up the Talon track, and then instead of switching to the Overwatch path when the weekly reset happened, I stuck on the same side. Which left me with a handful of completed dailies and scuppered my chance to nab the loot box from the start.
Should I have assumed I wouldn't be getting a fresh batch of dailies? Probably, but it's just one small part in how the whole event feels too tight, too restrictive. I shouldn't have to think this hard about getting some fun event rewards.
What should feel like a celebration of the game's grand revamp instead feels like a poorly planned attempt to force me to play in the hopes I'll stick around. Blizzard, I like your game. You don't have to exploit my inner completionist to get me online. You already did the hard part with your mini reboot!
I suppose the bright side to all of this is that my least favourite part of the game right now is fleeting. In two weeks, the event will be gone—and I'll inevitably be moaning about how I miss the drip-fed loot boxes—and there's a chance for Blizzard to do better with whatever it has planned next. Hopefully, in a way that doesn't require all of this annoying preplanning just to get some sprays I'll never use.
I still want them, though.
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