When Overwatch 2 was announced at Blizzcon 2019 and shown off for the very first time a lot of fans (myself being one of them) were very excited. But as the days and weeks dragged on we were all left wondering: "What exactly is Overwatch 2 going to be?" Sure it's a four player co-op game that has hero progression and some loot drops but other than a big, replayable OW1 event that you have to buy there didn't really seem to be a whole to it. Nearly a year later the beta for Marvel's Avengers has launched on PS4 and what do we see? 4 player co-op missions where each player picks a hero and does battle with the nefarious forces set to take over the world. Replace Avengers with Overwatch and AIM with the Omnic Crisis and you've got the plot for OW2. But while Avengers has a deep customization and progression system Overwatch 2... doesn't. If that wasn't bad enough numerous interviews after the gameplay reveal showed that Blizzard was still trying to hammer out exactly how they wanted the player to progress their heroes in the game. With supposedly only a few months to go until the much rumored launch date OW2 might have some fierce competition from a very unexpected source.
At first that comparison may seem unfair. After all Square's Avengers isn't beholden to an already existing video game property. There are no pre established game mechanics and character abilities that have to somehow be adapted to a game they were never meant to be in to begin with. Square has much more creative freedom with how they're going to make their heroes play and interact with the game world than Blizzard does. In Blizzard's favor Square also doesn't have numerous co-op game modes in another I.P. that are tried and true and quite popular among their core base of players. Overwatch simply needs to take what they've already built and make it bigger and better, but how?
The fact that when the gameplay reveal happened that question was still being asked by Blizzard itself is not good news. Square has their progression nailed down and the game modes are nothing to sneeze at either. Overwatch 2 has an amazing roster of characters that are well known and much loved but that's about it. So far for Overwatch 2 all we've seen is a story mission and a bare bones progression system that may or may not be in the final game. In Avengers you can pick any unlocked hero for any mission. In Overwatch 2 you can't. If that wasn't bad enough the lore of the Overwatch world isn't very well established and we still only have bits and fragments of the current timeline. Avengers on the other hand has decades of lore and story to pick from and enough freedom to take what they need and fabricate an entirely new story of out it. At this stage it's hard to not think that Blizzard is playing with scraps while Square has an embarrassment of riches to delve into for Avengers.
While we still have an entire event to look forward to that will tell us much more about Overwatch 2's development it's going to be very tough to avoid comparisons to Marvel's Avengers between now and launch. If the game devs for Overwatch 2 aren't looking at Avengers then they better wake the fuck up. In just over a month the success or failure of Avengers is going to be a signpost for Overwatch 2 and if Blizzard's game can't measure up they better get their acts together or they're going to be shitting bricks when the negative reviews come pouring in.