So for a while after Overwatch's launch it seemed like it was going to metaphorically conquer the world. Then the promising potential of Overwatch 2 turned into a rather controversial mess (that I have a petition here to change back including bringing back the PvE that was supposedly the entire reason for a 2) and now it seems the game has been stuck in a bit of a holding pattern that has made a lot of people lose faith in Blizzard being anything but money-grubbers esp. now that they've been acquired by Microsoft (which I have a petition here to undo). If it really is money that Blizzard cares about they can make money via player retention-and-not-rage-uninstalling and if they care about more than money they should want to do right by the fans and redeem themselves. This is why I believe there are many things about Overwatch 1 that deserve to be brought back to Overwatch 2 so the fandom can be brought back to what it was in the Overwatch 1 era.

A thing many people have had a problem with is the battlepass. While I don't know if, if it could even be taken away, lootboxes could be brought back instead without running afoul of some gambling rule, I feel like there must be some way to even work within its existence to give at least a semblance of how things used to work. Some of the things that the battlepass replaced like not just lootbox openings but how heroes used to come out on the same day in some big event with a trailer and whole slate of cosmetics or how events and the cosmetics that came with them used to be a much bigger deal (and ran on a predictable schedule of Winter Wonderland, Chinese New Year, Archives, Summer Games, Anniversary, Halloween Terror) were the backbone of the online outside-of-game-proper Overwatch community not just on YouTube. Therefore if there could be some way that things could be returned to some degree of how they were (events feeling like events again, heroes getting more cosmetics on release (when was the last time I even saw a new cosmetic that wasn't a skin) and perhaps even cool it a little with the crossover shit) that would remind a lot of fans of what they loved about the game in the first place. Speaking of cosmetics, when we have been getting skins that aren't crossovers they've been poorer quality than they should be. It used to be everyone got some common and rare recolors and a couple epics and legendaries and there were a handful of legendaries and a couple epics every event, now new heroes release with barely any skins (never mind anything else) and the legendaries often feel like epics. Cosmetics deserve to have actual effort put into them again if they want people to keep buying them. Speaking of effort, another thing that needs more effort is the lore. I know what happened to the PVE but if we can't bring that back, since I heard they didn't fire the entire narrative team and didn't abandon all semblance of having a narrative, could we at least get a TV show of the lore like what almost happened with Netflix or at the bare minimum regular comics and animated shorts like there used to be because occasional novels and one short story a month ain't cutting it any more.

I understand if Blizzard has other priorities currently (and by that I mean their other games not making money) but I believe they should get to bringing back all these old things (more effort into the skins and lore and some way to have events feel like they used to) as soon as they can. A lot of Overwatch-related fandom spaces have basically felt like circlejerks lately and if Blizzard could give the fans back what they want they could earn back their loyalty. This would ensure they keep coming back, keep playing, keep buying etc. and breathe new life back into the game. After all, the world needs heroes and heroes never die!