Nah, Doom and Dark Souls have aged phenomenally. It brought a whole influx of new fans to a series, hell a genre, that was all but forgotten. I think DS3 was the one that drove tons of studios to try to put out their own soulslike game just to capture the popularity. Not to discredit Overwatch, I have no interest at all in MOBAs, but looking back that year is a toss up
They’re releasing a bunch of content when previously they barely released any. Like this year they released 5 heroes at once. And they’re continuing to release more characters way faster than they ever have as well as new maps and more lore. They also a while back added perks your character gets throughout the game that’s added more variety and I think more fun
Also, just my opinion, but the game seems to be in a pretty decent spot balance wise
You can unlock any battlepass and complete them whenever (next patch), all heroes are free now, 6v6 is back, loot boxes are back, map voting, hero bans in comp, perks make ow way more fun, new hero every season
GOTY awards (pretty much all of them by any outlet) is as much a popularity contest as much as, or more than, it is a nod to quality. In terms of popularity OW blew every other game there out of the water on top of having tons of positive hype.
Popularity, yes. Doom just for example though has aged far better than Overwatch. Titanfall 2 is still talked about fondly to this day, to say that Overwatch deserved it the most over everyone else, popularity aside, I just gotta disagree with that.
Titanfall 2 is literally my favourite game but Overwatch was unmatched.
Basically everyone knew it... even if they didn't play games.
Not on par with Among Us but very close.
Both animated Spiderman films came out the same years as Infinity War and Endgame and I'd say the Spiderverse are better films... but it's hard to match the sheer cultural impact of Infinity War/Endgame.
So, I’ll be a little more blunt: Titanfall 2 may or may not have been a better game. But Overwatch had monolithic popularity—it was ludicrously well-known, like Stormfly said.
However: Titanfall 2 is still talked about fondly, yes, but Overwatch is still popular.
“It was huge” should never equate to “Winning Game of the Year.” Or any award to be honest. I’m going to speak blasphemy here: E33 is overhyped and subpar compared to everything that both came before it and after it. Is it a breath of fresh air in the modern gaming landscape? Yeah, absolutely. But it’s not the second coming of christ ffs. And Id say the same thing of most best game winners, save Sekiro. Sekiro was big, but was polarizing even for fans of From and Souls-likes. Games like Sekiro, It Takes Two, and BG3 should win more often because they excel at what they do so well. OW1 (and 2) is literally just worse TF2 that has to keep adding heroes to arbitrarily keep players engaged into a meta. I’m not saying there can’t be room for improvement within TF2’s formula, but nothings come close, and it’s not looking like anything will for a while. That’s not to mention that OW did more damage to the industry than any other game. Everything after OW had to be a hero shooter in one way or another. Rant over.
TL;DR: Just because something is popular, doesn’t mean it should win GoTY or any award.
Overwatch definitely felt more like it was part of a larger overwall "fad" in the game industry, whereas a lot of these other 2016 contenders have aged into classics
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u/magicchefdmb Aug 25 '26
Absolutely this. It was huge. It absolutely deserved game of the year.
And I'm enjoying its recent revival. Redownloaded it a few weeks ago and having a great time again.