In between tackling bigger games I’m still dabbling in Overwatch, and have recently stumbled upon some good resources for learning more about playing better.

First, and maybe surprisingly given it’s rep, there’s a pretty good Reddit group called Overwatch University. The name says it all, but one of the nice things seems to be the encouragement of positive feedback to even simple questions.

The second, and best, is a YouTube channel run by Skyline. This is a great resource full of educational stuff about heroes, maps, strategies, etc. Skyline is an extremely good communicator and teacher, but most of all he’s also pushing the positivity barrow. When he’s analysing VODs submitted by players, he takes a good humoured and encouraging line on everything he talks about, no matter how un-optimal some of the submissions are. It’s super refreshing - his ‘highlighted’ video is basically a recommendation that ‘having fun’ is the best way to get better. Wise words for any game.

Finally there was a good spontaneous Reddit AMA from Overwatch boss Jeff Kaplan, who has emerged as the Ghostcrawler of the OW team. He’s very open, communicates often, and the AMA is a good example of why the game maintains popularity despite nerfs, buffs, and loot box controversy. Plus, you learn excellent facts like:

The first hero we implemented was Tracer. We did not have any animations or gun models. So she shot laser beams from her eyes.

LASER BEAM EYE TRACER. YES!