Overwatch climbs from Steam's worst-rated game to Mixed reviews after three years

Three years after landing on Steam as its lowest-rated game, Overwatch has finally crossed into Mixed review territory. Blizzard's hero shooter — which launched on Steam in August 2023 under the Overwatch 2 name — once sat at just 10% positive reviews, making it the worst-rated game on the platform. It now ranks 20th on Steam 250's Hall of Shame, which, in context, is a genuine comeback.

The backlash that buried it originally came from several directions at once. Overwatch 2 replaced the original game entirely, cut team sizes from six players to five, and locked new heroes behind the Battle Pass — a decision Blizzard eventually reversed in 2024. The promised PvE mode, a major selling point for the sequel, was quietly shelved after a handful of underwhelming missions. Players who felt they'd lost the original game without getting a worthy replacement made their feelings known in the reviews, and loudly. Now the split is evening out. Positive reviews praise the new heroes, the improved Battle Pass value, and the depth of the hero design. Negative ones still hammer the microtransactions and the toxicity baked into team-based play. One player with over 200 hours summed up the Overwatch experience with characteristic honesty: "The absolute hatred I feel every day when opening this abomination from hell makes my blood boil. That being said, I do play on an almost daily basis. Anyways, screw this game and see you online tomorrow."

Overwatch dropped the 2 from its title and has been running what amounts to a soft reboot, leaning into narrative content delivered through comics, audio dramas, and short stories alongside its seasonal updates. Blizzard has committed to releasing 10 new heroes across 2026, each tied into an ongoing story — a direct response to years of fan frustration that the game's rich lore never made it into the actual game. The approach seems to be working, at least well enough to drag the Steam score out of the basement.

Mixed is not a triumph, but for a game that spent years as a punchline on Steam, it's a meaningful shift. Whether Blizzard can push it further into Positive territory will depend on whether the 2026 hero rollout keeps delivering and whether the monetization complaints — still the loudest note in the negative reviews — ever get addressed in a way that satisfies the community.