I’ve been a player of Overwatch on and off for many years. Having grown up with various FPS (First Person Shooter) games I remember being blown away by Overwatch when it was released back in 2016. Today it’s still a very popular game even though it’s been getting a bit tired. The developers have put some fresh fuel in the tank by releasing a new game mode a week ago called Stadium. I think it’s innovative enough to make a post about it.
If you’re already familiar with Overwatch you’d know that the characters are categorized by the typical Holy Trinity of Tank, Damage and Support roles and Overwatch gameplay would often involve players changing characters mid-game to counter an opposing teams advantage. This trend of character swapping mid-game earned the game a nickname of “Counterwatch” amongst critics. Overwatch recently introduced Perks to encourage players to stick with their chosen character during games and now with Stadium, chosen characters are locked in for the duration of a Best of 7 Maps contest. However, conceptually there is another significant difference...
In Stadium each character earns credits through the game than can be spent on Upgrades and Enhancements to their Abilities and Attributes. What this means is that instead of countering opposition dominance by changing characters, players can come up with a strategy to counter opposition dominance via buffing their characters through the Armory in a way that helps without them having to change their character.
Of course, the first release of Stadium has its issues. Some characters and abilities are overpowered and the Meta Game is still being worked out, but the new game mode is getting a good number of players trying it out and I am sure that with the information collected the game developers will be able to tweak the armoury and achieve better game balance. Currently there is a limited number of the regular characters available in Stadium but I’m sure that more of the games regular characters will be added over time.
Even though I think the first release of Stadium is far from perfect I see enough innovation here to be optimistic that this new game mode could be a decent hit for the Overwatch ecosystem. So if you're into FPS gaming then Overwatch Stadium is worth a look.
