Overwatch 2 is, by far, the worst rated game on Steam, and developer Blizzard’s messy breakup with China in 2022 is, in part, responsible for it.
Many top-liked negative reviews are bitter posts written in simplified Chinese, though, most reviews, regardless of the language they’re written, share the same few gripes. They cite the first-person shooter’s highly unpopular battle pass model, which Blizzard added in 2022, and its good, but not as good as it was seven years ago PvE mode as the roots of their disillusionment.
All Steam reviewers are, clearly, taking the game’s brand new page as an opportunity to air out harbored resentment that its previous online storefront, comments-free Battle.net, wouldn’t allow them to set free. But this sudden opportunity to be vocal impacts China-based fans differently; not only does Steam allow those fans to more easily play Overwatch since service provider NetEase ended multiple Blizzard licenses earlier this year, but also, it enables them to say exactly how they feel about it.
Read More: Activision Blizzard May Have Pulled Out Of China Over Messy Miscommunication
In March, NetEase told Kotaku that its “recent negotiations revealed a clear misalignment between [NetEase and Activision Blizzard], both in commercial terms and in corporate values.
“Therefore we decided it was not in our long-term interest to serve the short-term goals of Activision Blizzard’s current leadership or to deviate from our founding principles,” the company continued.
Sure, OK. But Niko Partners, which collects market intelligence for countries across Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, director of research Daniel Ahmad says on Twitter that Chinese gamers are nonetheless “upset over losing their accounts and ability to play on the national server, with no announcement of a return so far.”
“Complaints have mostly revolved around: […] lack of national server and existing game account, slow [log-ins] and poor online connection, [and] criticism over shutdown of national server and impact on gaming communities,” he said.
Read More: Overwatch 2 Steam Reviews Are Predictably Brutal, Say Porn Is The Best Part
Still, the throughline in the majority of Overwatch 2’s staggering (at the time of writing) 107,425 bad reviews is that players think pay-to-play sucks. Oh, and porn. The most highly rated bad review, with 56,948 “helpful” ratings, determines that “the people who make Overwatch porn work harder than the people who make Overwatch.”
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