Overwatch 2 director says its devs are feeling the pressure since Marvel Rivals took off doing Overwatchy things in not quite Overwatchy fashion

Marvel Rivals has caused a bit of a stir in the hero shooter scene since it arrived late last year, offering everyone the chance to play as a landshark, then to play as a landshark that’d been turned into a train, and subsequently made it tougher to turn landsharks into trains.

Naturally, the devs of Overwatch 2 – sibling to the game that was pretty much the hero shooter heavyweight for a time – are among those who’ve been watching Venom fall off ledges and Star-Lord hit a lantern rabona with great interest.

Speaking to GamesRadar, Overwatch 2 director Aaron Keller said that, thanks to Rivals, his team is “in a new competitive landscape that I think, for Overwatch, we’ve never really been in before, to this extent where there’s another game that’s so similar to the one that we’ve created”.

He added that he reckons it’s “really great to see a game kind of take a different direction with some of the things you’ve kind of looked at before”, because it’s forcing Overwatch 2’s devs to really think about pushing the boat out, and making things “no longer about playing it safe”.

Asked about the mixed to negative perception that surrounds OW2 in lot of folks’ minds at this point, Keller said “it almost feels like there’s a few different versions of Overwatch in people’s minds”. “Especially over the course of the last year, we’ve really focused on leveling up the game,” he outlined, “I hope those people really see that with a lot of the things we’ve been sharing lately, and hopefully that can spread out to the broader community as well.

“But [on the other hand] I understand, you know? I understand when people have that particular view. They thought that the game was going to be something that it didn’t end up being.”

So, here’s hoping that the big changes that Overwatch 2’s bringing in its next couple of seasons, adding in the likes of perks and the new stadium mode, as well as bringing back loot boxes – a thing I definitely saw and thought ‘yup, my life has been nothing with those’ can help the game push back against Rivals. Iron sharpens iron, or some other phrase your dad might use.

Will you be giving Overwatch 2 another chance this year, or are you all-in on Marvel Rivals? Let us know below!