The Double-Barrier Meta is Hurting Overwatch

I don't like the double-barrier meta. That, itself, should be fairly obvious from the title. I haven't liked it for a long time. I didn't like when we started trending this way and I definitely didn't like it with the release of Sigma in July, despite the fact the hero shares my birthday as a release date.

It's just boring, plain and simple. It's mind-numbing, and it doesn't feel like I'm making an impact. Now, it's just "what you do." You're supposed to play Orisa or Sigma if you're a tank main, and that's all. It's a brainless, lemming-style gameplay that ultimately takes the element of choice away from the player.

Players aren't making clever choices or strategic guesses with their team composition. They're just doing a job according to the meta. It's turned Overwatch into a dungeon-crawler game rather than the intuitive arena it's supposed to be. I feel like I could run a bot from World of Warcraft and get the same effect.

This has lasting implications for the other roles, too. Double-barrier eliminates the most fun parts of damage play. Sure, you still have tank-eaters like Reaper and a good Widowmaker might find a position to secure picks, but that's the end of it. If you're a ranged damage dealer like more than half the roster, you're just going to be spraying into a wall until the match is over.

It's pretty much Doomfist or die.

This doesn't even apply to all tanks, either. Where's Reinhardt in all this? It looks like Blizzard tried to buff D.va to make her viable in the meta, but nobody really knows where that's going to take us until it plays out.

Even spectating matches is boring. Instead of weighing the pros and cons of each hero, it's become a game of "which Sigma is the better Sigma." We can't even draw a rock-paper-scissors comparison because there's no other viable options.

Games are supposed to be fun and challenging when appropriate. At the end of a match, I want to feel like I did a uniquely good job. Instead, I dread logging in knowing I'm going to be staring down a fluorescent blue screen held up by an animatronic centaur for the next few hours. I don't want to Overwatch to feel like a chore.

And for the love of Mercy, I'd like to stop seeing this old man's feet.

Image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment