Looking back at 10 years of Overwatch: promises were fulfilled, and where is Team 4 headed from here?

For players to be able to play the game in the present, they need to be confident in its future.

"In order for people to play the game now, they have to have confidence in the future."

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10 years is a long time for anything, but for a live service game it's a milestone that few are able to surpass. Overwatch was able to cross the production line earlier this year and has been on something of a victory lap ever since, because after all the highs and lows, Overwatch is in the best place it's ever been.

"It doesn't feel like 10 years to me," the game's director, Aaron Keller, tells me. "Though, I could probably answer that question in a few ways. "Probably a year or two in the middle of the process will feel like five or six years, but there's always a lot to do in the team and the game." But Claire reiterates the good old adage: "If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.

Our team is full of people who are not only passionate about making games, but passionate about Overwatch itself, our heroes, and the world they inhabit. "So when you come into the office and talk about it throughout the day, time can fly by."

Assistant game director Alec Dawson joined before the release of Overwatch 2, but he also feels like the last four years have gone by "in the blink of an eye." "Sometimes it goes by a lot faster than you think," Dawson adds.

Overwatch has gone through many metamorphoses, some good, some not so good. We had the early golden years, then we had the GOATS, then we had a bunch of the best movies ever, then we had the early Brigitte, which literally balanced the game.

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After a content drought, the excitement was renewed with the announcement of Overwatch 2, and while it offered some nice changes like more champions, content, and focused 5v5 teamfights, it failed to meet the demands of a sequel, and that's without the disappointment around PvE.

There was a time when I thought it was for Overwatch, with PvE and Overwatch 2 being all anyone was talking about. But I've never been happy to be proven wrong, because all these years Overwatch has been experimenting with things like points and stadiums, changing the user experience with map voting and champion bans, and switching to a new annual content release format.

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"I don't think we knew it would go this far, to be honest," says Keller. "I think there's always been something special about Overwatch. There's something special about the world. This optimistic, hopeful take on the future. I think there's something special about the gameplay — it's very crisp and clean — and there are moments you have in Overwatch that you can't really have in other games."

I've said it before, but the current success that Team 4 is seeing didn't happen overnight. It has been a long road, a road marked by deliberate decisions and solutions adopted by its developers. The passion shown by the developers, the humility to admit when things don't work, and keeping the player's interests at the forefront is why the game is in such good shape today.

What promises has Team 4 fulfilled in the last 10 years?

"That's a big question. There's been a lot of moments, especially in the last couple of years, where I feel like we've really turned the game around and given it a lot of positive momentum moving forward. The future. One of the things we've said a lot over the last couple of years is that we want to play the game that our players want to play."

There's a tighter focus on the core Overwatch experience, the heroes that come into the game, looking at some of our gameplay systems, but also the promise to listen, the promise that we're going to take care of the game and the experience, right? Our players have been telling us that they want narrative to be the focus again, part of the core of the game. They've been telling us that they want us to focus on the core experience, and I think that's really one of the most important promises that we have to keep—making sure that we're listening and doing what our players want. But we also do them differently, so we surprise them too. Just make sure they can be confident in the direction of the game itself."

"I like it. That's a great answer, Alec, because it's like the other thing we're saying is that in order for people to play the game now, they have to have confidence in the future. For a live service game like this, for many of our players, this is their main hobby. It's a lifestyle game for these people and they need to know that Overwatch is in good hands. They need to know that we're always trying to improve the experience for them, otherwise they can really lose trust in that experience. Once they lose that trust — and I think we can speak based on the experience here — it's very, very difficult to get it back."

"What we like to say sometimes internally is 'reasons to stay.' Reasons to come back. We have these moments throughout the year, especially at the beginning of the year, that are reasons to come back to the game. There's this big reset, a bunch of content, a bunch of new stuff. It's so shiny because we're just getting a lot of opportunities, a lot of shots to get the players' attention and keep them coming back. So when they do, we want to make sure the experience level is elevated, Right? So it's really important that not only are there these big moments, but in between, the game gets better and better."

Coming off its 10th anniversary, Overwatch has a new seasonal theme song that has worked to not only build excitement, but also, as Keller sees it, reinforce the belief that Overwatch is indeed on the right track. There's a steady stream of quality-of-life changes to its UI, as seen last season with new heal, burn, and team markers. Team 4 has given players more freedom to choose drives, and the narrative story has returned to the core of the Overwatch experience.

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Obviously, there will be a steady stream of new content and characters, but Dawson also confirmed that overhauling and tweaking the map is "something we want to continue to do." Informed by map voting and community feedback, the team ensures that reworks "can stand on their own," not only fixing issues, but also aiming for a better overall experience: "I think our next rework will do a really good job of that."

"We're really developing on Season 1 for 2027," Claire reveals. "We're talking about what Season 1 is going to look like in 2028 and we're starting that. We want it to feel like it's not just a big moment, but that this game is fresh for players and we're making players look at it again with new eyes — we want to do it in a different way every year."

But while Team 4 gets stuck into planning content for years to come, Dawson emphasizes that their overall mission remains the same: "As much as the industry has changed, so have the games, the genres, etc. Overwatch is still home to a lot of people. Making sure Overwatch can be as much a part of those people's lives as possible is a really big responsibility.

"To make sure we have a game and heroes that they can relate to, make sure they can play with their friends and just go where they feel like, OK, this is where I want to be. This is where I want to spend my time. This is where I want to make memories. Hopefully we can continue that in the future."

Eli is a news writer who has an unhealthy love for horror games, even if their greatest fear is being chased. When they're not screaming or hiding, you'll most likely find them testing their metal in Metroidvania or admiring their Pokemon TCG collection. Ellie previously worked as a writer at TechRadar Gaming and studied International and Documentary Journalism at JOMEC.

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