Like clockwork, the nominations for The Game Awards have been unveiled, and controversy has inevitably followed. This year, voices like Shroud have pushed back on the lack of love for viral extraction shooter ARC Raiders, though the game missing the voting cutoff due to its late release likely contributed to some of the omissions. Others are frustrated about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 taking up half of the slots for Best Performance, with the casts of Hades 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Dispatch, and Death Stranding 2 going uncelebrated in the category. For me, though, the biggest misfire is found within a category that often gets looked over in favor of the bigger awards: Best Ongoing. This is because it leaves out Overwatch 2, a game that has risen from the ashes of a horrible launch to retake its throne at the top of the hero shooter genre.
Designed to honor live-service titles that offer exceptional post-launch support, be it free updates, thrilling collaborations, or drastic improvements, the Game Awards 2025’s Best Ongoing lineup is full of stellar games:
- Final Fantasy 14
- Fortnite
- Helldivers 2
- Marvel Rivals
- No Man’s Sky
To be clear, I’m not arguing against any of these games being here. Fortnite is a juggernaut, No Man’s Sky and Final Fantasy 14 are two of gaming’s greatest redemption stories, Helldivers 2 is beloved, and Marvel Rivals’ content cadence is unheard of for its genre. However, I truly feel that a sixth slot should have been added to this category as a way to honor all that Blizzard has done to improve Overwatch 2 over the last year, as the game has come leaps and bounds over the last 12 months.
While it’s true that genre-specific categories tend to only have 5 slots in The Game Awards, the GOTY and Best Performance categories having 6 shows this number is arbitrary and can be changed if there are more games deserving recognition.
The Overwatch 2 of 2025 Finally Feels Like a Worthy Successor to the First Game
Overwatch 2’s initial struggles were well documented. The game’s monetization drew ire from the community, as the original Overwatch was extremely generous with free and earnable rewards. The cancelation of PvE is one of the biggest gaming disappointments of the last few years, as players felt lied to. The shift to 5v5 proved controversial, with 6v6 enjoyers feeling left out, and the narrative essentially being abandoned following the Invasion missions’ release felt like a slap in the face to lore lovers. All of this combined to create the most common assessment of Overwatch 2: the sequel only exists to bring in battle pass revenue and reach new players by being free-to-play.
Overwatch 2 absolutely could have caved to the criticism, falling apart after its historic Steam review-bombing and all the hate in every developer update or trailer released for the game. However, Team 4 kept working, addressing community criticisms one by one and making Overwatch 2 into more than just a hollow shell of the award-winning original. When looking at the timeline for Overwatch 2’s 2025 improvements, it’s clear that Blizzard has kicked things up a notch over the last several months:
- February 2025 brought the return of loot boxes to Overwatch 2, giving players more rewards to chase via weekly challenges, OW2 Twitch Drops, special events, and battle passes. These boxes are quite generous, too, as they include numerous skins that were exclusive to high-priced Battle Pass bundles and the in-game shop. They're also gameplay-exclusive and cannot be purchased.
- February 2025 also saw Perks added to Overwatch 2, a system where players choose between a few buffs for their hero as they level up throughout the round.
- April 2025 brought the release Overwatch 2’s game-changing Stadium mode, which proved to be the biggest burst of excitement for the community since the sequel’s announcement. Deep builds for heroes to let gamers play the way they want to, exclusive maps and modes, regular updates, and an eSports-like announcer all give the mode a different feel from traditional Overwatch.
- April also brought the return of 6v6 competitive to Overwatch 2, giving fans of the traditional style an Open Queue experience to enjoy if they disliked the feel of 5v5. Hero bans, a long-requested feature, also came to the game in April.
- June 2025 brought map voting to Overwatch 2 after years of players requesting the feature.
- August 2025 added Progression 2.0 for Overwatch 2, which gives players hero-specific progression trees and dedicated SR rankings for individual characters, properly rewarding them for maining specific characters. In a welcome good faith gesture, players were retroactively given rewards for all their time put into heroes prior to the system being added, meaning players logged in to find dozens of loot boxes and other unlocks.
- November 2025 brought a lore codex to Overwatch 2, and while players still want to see old comics and animated shorts added to the timeline, it’s shaping up to be a great way for players to keep up with the story in-game. Significant lore updates have also been promised for every season going forward so that the story keeps moving along.
Essentially, Overwatch 2 has ticked every box, barring PvE, that players wanted to see ticked. Its storytelling is improving, 6v6 enjoyers have a way to experience the old style, loot boxes have been a boon for cosmetic collectors, and long-requested mechanics like map voting have been introduced. Big surprises like Stadium have shaked things up, too, and when paired with a dozen new heroes, several new maps, and multiple game modes, Overwatch 2 truly feels content complete. Because of that, it really shouldn’t be getting ignored this awards season.
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This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.
