Summary
Here’s the deal: I play a lot ofOverwatch 2. My gaming group plays daily, I have every battle pass completed since the game’s relaunch in 2023, and I spend a lot of money on skins.
Why? It makes me happy and I have poor impulse control, shut up.
Despite that, I’ve truly enjoyed most of the Overwatch 2 crossover collabs. I love how Blizzard attempts to not just recreate characters from outside their game, but take inspiration from those universes. However, the game’s most recent dip into that pool with 1980s nostalgia brandG.I. Joefeels like a headfirst dive into the shallow end, in more ways than one.
C’mon, Blizzard. You can do better than this. The players deserve it, the fans of those IPs deserve it, and most of all… my wallet deserves it.
Overwatch 2 Deploys G.I. Joe Into Battle
I’ll be honest: G.I. Joe isn’t my jam, but all the same I can see why it would make sense as an Overwatch 2 collaboration. Guns, fun designs, and the most recent season of the game leaning into arcade and 8-bit nostalgia.
The crossover even makes sense on a meta level. If you’re trying to sell skins (toys) to a group of people with nervous bank accounts then what better series to do it with than the originator of “this was made purely to sell merch”?
But the problem with the G.I. Joe skins highlights a growing issue with the last few collaborations in Overwatch 2. Primarily, there’s a real lack of quality control going on when it comes to the uniqueness of these $20+ skins.
I hate to give credit to Riot, as its DLC practices can be just as transparent. But, when I’ve paid out big bucks for gun skins inValorantI never walked away feeling like I wasn’t getting something special. To this day I still grin at hearing the sound effects that play on theZedd-themed spraythat came with a $100 gun bundle that I absolutely did not need.
Why did I buy it? Do I love Zedd that much? God no. It was cool, and cool stuff rocks. Sometimes it’s that simple.
And there’s the problem with the Overwatch 2 collaborations. Too many of them feel, at best, like winks and nods to the various universes brought into the game–not additions worth the price of admission.
I immediately bought the Gundam collaboration skins and immediately felt let down because something just felt… Missing. You couldn’t even modulate Mercy’s voice to make it sound like she’s in a giant robot, Blizzard? Really? Lazy or missed opportunity, you be the judge. But this isn’t even the most prominent example.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the worst dressed list.
Copying Your Neighbor’s Homework
More and more Overwatch 2 skins released arenothing more than the base skin for any given character given a new coat of paint. This goes past being about recolors, which at least attempt to bring something new to older designs. In the case of the G.I. Joe Overwatch 2 collab, Reaper’s Cobra Commander skin is quite literally his default look but with a new helmet.
Facetious? Maybe. The color scheme is different, the guns have a bit more flair, and there’s a knife on his thigh. But I expect to be impressed if I’m paying $20 for an in-game item. I want sounds, unique voice lines, and some kind of inclination that effort was put into the work.
We live in a world where $20 doesn’t get you as far as it used to, as much as it pains me to say that. I’ll try not to get all boomer on you, but that’s still the price of lunch for my wife and I. And this absolutely isn’t me being mad that my beloved G.I. Joe was disrespected or anything.
I don’t go here. It’s not my thing.
But if I saw these skins then looked at the price I would be bummed in a major way.
This would be less of a glaring issue if the skin were priced better, or made free as part of the event that runs for the two weeks while the collab is available. Blizzard did this during the Avatar: The Last Airbender event,giving Mei a free Katara skinthat was also just her base look, slightly upgraded.
And it’s not even the reuse of assets that bothers me. I get it: game development is expensive and difficult. IfWorld of Warcraftuses the same pile of skeletons as set dressing in a dungeon, I’m not going to cry wolf and go do an internet about it.
But I’m also not paying an Andrew Jackson to run that dungeon, you dig? And this skin isn’t the first time that this has happened. We’re seeing more and more assets reused to pad the battle pass, such as Tracer’s vaporwave highlight intro being reused for multiple characters.
Give Me More Beeps And Boops
I’m not asking for much when it comes to my premium DLC. I love Overwatch 2, I enjoy supporting the game’s development by buying skins, and I look forward to new collaborations each season. But, Blizzard…. You gotta work with me.
My money is precious. I have four cats andlitter is shockingly expensive.
If you’re going to charge a premium fee then I expect a premium product. This G.I. Joe Overwatch 2 expansion isn’t it. We won’t even get into the weeds about how Duke, arguably the main character of the series, didn’t even get a skin. That’s bush league levels of effort.
Give me more noises, make my first reaction to your skin collabs one of joy, and stop charging me an arm and a leg forOverwatch 2 collabsthat make it look like you wrote an essay five minutes before the teacher asked you to turn it in.
