Deathmatch Modes In Overwatch Are A Nice Change Of Pace

For the longest time, the community has been asking Blizzard to introduce some sort of deathmatch mode in Overwatch. And while it took some time, but we finally got a taste of what’s coming to the game via the PTR. Last night, Blizzard rolled out two deathmatch modes; Free For All (FFA) and Team Deathmatch (TDM), which are located in the arcade mode. In FFA, your goal is to reach 20 points before your opponents do, while in TDM, your team has to reach 30 points or waste the clock away. If you happen to kill yourself, a point will be deducted from your or your team’s score.

While these modes are the simplest form of most first person shooters, they’re also easily the best thing to happen to Overwatch. There’s no yelling at your team to defend the point, stay on the point or even push the payload. Instead, you simply pick your favorite or best-played character, load into the game and try to kill as many people as you can. It’s a welcomed change from partaking in the objective-based modes and a breath of fresh air.

Included in the deathmatch mode is one new map, Château Guillard, which takes place in a beautiful looking castle, full of areas to engage in wide open and close quarter combat. This map also marks the first time that a map includes jump pads, which are the green circular items on the ground. It’s worth mentioning that Château Guillard also is part of Widow Maker’s backstory. The remainder of the maps are condensed versions of existing maps. Outside of that, everything is the same as you remember from Overwatch, and this doesn’t exactly translate over to a good experience. Don’t get me wrong, as I mentioned, the deathmatch feels good. Frantic, fast and keeps you on your toes. But outside of that are a few issues.  

The spawn points, for example, are random and since you’re looking at a smaller area, you’re likely to spawn directly in front of your enemy, or vice versa. This happened a number of times during my 3 hours with the game. Then there’s the issue with certain maps not blending well with the mode – mainly the Space Outpost Map. Should you spawn outside on that map or wander out there, you’re propelled up and onwards. Meaning if an enemy happens to see you out there, you’re pretty much dead. Other maps are simply too small to contain 8 characters running around with guns blazing. Of course, this is all happening on the PTR and not the live server as Blizzard more than likely wanted to get some feedback on the early state of the deathmatch mode.

But don’t let that stop you from checking out both the FFA and TDM modes, as you definitely should. Both are highly amusing, a blast to play and a great way to wind down, especially if you’re tired of hearing or tell your team to stay on the point.

As of now, Free For All and Team Deathmatch are only available the PC, as the PS4 and Xbox One, don’t have access to this. There’s no ETA on when we can expect to see either of these pushed live as of yet.