The Rivalry between Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 was an expected conflict when Overwatch was first announced in 2014, later to be release May of 2016. Just from the art style alone, many people expected Overwatch to be an exact copy of Team Fortress 2, and some thought it was meant to replace it. But is it actually similar? The two games may look identical, but how similar are they, and are they really rivals?
Back in 2007 The Orange Box introduced us to 5 games in 1 box. These games included Half-life 2, Half-Life 2, Episodes 1 and 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2. Team Fortress 2, or TF2 for short blew people away by the pixar like graphics, and humorous gameplay.
Overwatch was officially announced 2014, slowly grew traction and interest over the next year til it was officially released 2016 of May. People reported the release of the game filled that empty void they had after they got bored of TF2 after playing for many years. Many long term TF2 players switched to Overwatch. The 2 games may look similar and be similar in a few ways, but these 2 games are very different. Just the backstory alone is completely different, TF2 being set in the 1940's about 2 brothers fighting over their dead dads will hiring mercenaries to fight to take over the land. And Overwatch, being a bit more worldly and open. The Overwatch story is about how people dealt with relations to "robots" known as Omnics, after the world dealt with an Omnic invasion and now people see omnics as evil, while others see the good in them. The 2 things they do have in relation is, when you're actually playing the game, the story has no relation to the gameplay, it's just two shooting games in the end with a few hints of story throughout different maps.
An example of the Mario Kart TF2 map
Now gameplay wise, Overwatch has a much better feel of course, because it is 10 years newer, than TF2 and TF2 at this point feels clunky and all over the place, but still is tons of fun. Back in the day TF2 looked like a pixar film, and the graphics still hold up for a 10 year old game, but you can notice It's a little lacking now. Overwatch is the same way right now, the game looks beautiful and it's art style is so unique, it will likely hold up graphics wise in the next 10 years, like how TF2 did.
The big reason people loved TF2 is for it's humor, gameplay, community, but mostly the user made content for the game. People could create their own maps, import their own models, and even sounds. People made whole custom games and people played these custom servers more than the official ones. You'd always find some new and interesting game modes, like balloon race, where you are racing on 2 separate blimps, and you have to fly your blimp all around the map and capture the points it lands to before the other blimp does. And another famous one was the Mario Kart maps, It's basically classic TF2 but set in a mario kart themed map full of fun little things to do, you could even race in the cars. That is what I feel is lacking personally in Overwatch. Overwatch is fun and all, but everything that is in the game is created by Blizzard. For this game it makes sense though, people are highly more competitive in Overwatch than TF2, but I feel like implementing a way for users to make their own maps and game modes would do Overwatch and the community a lot of good.
Personally I feel these 2 games are extremely different, and shouldn't be compared, even though I just compared them. They share similar traits, and unique art styles, but in the end TF2 is more laid back and creative in ways where the community literally made their own updates several times and Valve approved. Blizzard most likely wouldn't do that, but like I said, it would be nice to release some developer kit tools so the Overwatch community can make their own content. But if that is ever a thing, it will likely be a couple years before we see something like that. I love both of these games, and play both to this day.
Thanks for reading!