They’re trying their hardest not to mention eSports, but that doesn’t mean Blizzard’s upcoming shooter isn’t having an impact across other titles.
It’s easy to forget, but Team Fortress 2 has had a long and proud competitive history. It was a history that might have been revived recently, with fans hoping for a while that Valve would add competitive matchmaking to the free-to-play class-based team shooter.
But the longer they wait, the more and more Overwatch snaffles up its champions. The latest to switch: Froyotech, the North American team that was so dominant that they never lost a title at LAN. That wasn’t just a North American thing either. Froyotech won two world championships, and the last time Froyotech’s leader, b4nny, didn’t make the finals of an event was 2010.
They were good. The recent i55 TF2 grand finals — the video went up at the start of September — says it all.
“Probably now, could be considered after two world championships in a row, the best team in the world to play [Team Fortress 2],” one of the commentators quipped.
That was the case, at any rate, until very recently when the team had lost a lower bracket match for an online tournament. The team’s star scout later revealed that the release of Overwatch had enthralled the TF2 veterans so much that the team’s legendary dynamic had suffered, which gave some context to the reason why one of the players had left during the first match of the best-of-three and had to be substituted.
“Even though we didn’t end things in the most impressive way, I feel accomplished as a TF2 player. Many of our teammates, since the release of Overwatch, have had waning interest in TF2 (myself included). As a result, our team cohesion took a heavy hit,” Froyotech’s “clockwork” said. He added that he’ll be focusing on Overwatch as well, although the team’s captain remains committed to TF2 for now.
North American organisations, perhaps because of their proximity to Blizzard, have already made moves to poach TF2 teams for Overwatch. I’d expect those frenzied negotiations to continue in earnest once everyone returns from the holidays next year. The North Americans know Blizzard is doubling down on Overwatch hard, and they’re going to ride the train with them.
Comments
10 responses to “More Team Fortress 2 Teams Are Disbanding Because Of Overwatch”
It was an awesome run but unfortunately all good things come to and end.
Overwatch sales pitch: TF2 without silly hats!
SOLD!
You would be a fool to think they wont include micro transactions in the future, Hats will come, and skins, and emotes and dances, Hat Fortress 2.0 hell they are already selling skins with the preorder
Yes but the skins on overwatch wont affect the player in anyway apart from looks
They used to say that about hats too.
Remaining competitive as an 8 year old game is no mean feat. It’s still one of my favourite games to play because it’s aged extremely well due to the graphics style and the gameplay and classes are top notch, but as with all things, player numbers after this long will inevitably decrease. I’ve yet to have a proper look at Overwatch though but the similarities between it and TF2 are fairly evident.
Weeks ago kotaku writes an article saying how Overwatch is doomed to fail because Blizzard has never made an FPS, then posts this. Then in this very article makes some references to Blizzard not wanting to use the word eSports with Overwatch, yet they currently have a position open for an eSports manager FOR OVERWATCH. Good God, do these guys even research before posting articles?
Think a few things have been lost in translation there: I’ve certainly never said Overwatch would fail because Blizzard is new to the genre.
Well I have played over 600 hours of TF2 so I think its a good time to move on 🙂
600 Hours? You are a mere youngling in the TF2 community. I stopped playing TF2 about 2 years ago, distracted by other games (about the same time I started playing LoL) and have clocked 1880 hours which still pales in comparison to other TF2 veterans out there. That’s not including the hours from the beta and before Steam started tracking it.
Unfortunately all my old TF2 gang have moved on but I have been keeping an eye on Overwatch, I’ve mostly stayed away from FPSs since stopping TF2, might get into Overwatch…we shall see
Still blows me away that people are still playing TF.