The relaunch of Overwatch Season 1 has fans buzzing with anticipation. There’s plenty to look forward to: three new tanks, two new support characters, and two new damage dealers will all be available on February 10th. Players can also earn exciting new cosmetics through a battle pass packed with lore-rich outfits, a unique Mercy skin, and a fun collaboration with Hello Kitty. The game is also changing how heroes work with new sub-roles, each offering a special passive ability. Plus, the user interface has been updated, hero cards will return in Season 2, and the game’s story will be more prominent than ever. It truly feels like Overwatch is better than ever. But surprisingly, the feature I’m most excited about is one that hasn’t gotten much attention: Conquest.
Conquest is a five-week in-game event where players choose to support either the Overwatch or Talon side. By completing challenges centered around the game’s characters – like dealing damage or winning matches – players earn points for their chosen faction. A live meter tracks each faction’s progress as players worldwide contribute. Every week, the faction with the most points wins, and members of the winning side will receive special rewards.
- 75 Base Lootboxes
- 12 Epic Lootboxes
- 7 Legendary Lootboxes
- 9 new Voice Lines
- 31 2D Cosmetics
- 2 Weapon Charms
- 1 of 2 faction-themed Legendary Echo skins
- Exclusive new Rare, Epic and Legendary titles (and a secret hidden one)
Image via Blizzard This event has real meaning because the winning team will likely receive the exclusive Echo skin. That’s a great incentive to play regularly! While the five new heroes will attract players, the rewards offered for choosing the right side could be what keeps them playing long-term. As for me, this event feels like a fresh take on Overwatch events, and it reminds me of a unique PS3 game I really enjoyed called MAG.
As a huge fan, I was so excited to hear that Blizzard is letting us be double agents! Basically, once you finish your weekly faction pass, you can switch to the other side. But here’s the catch: you’ll have already played a part in helping the faction you’re leaving, so you really need to think about when you make that switch. It’s not something you’ll want to do impulsively!
Conquest Has Me Nostalgic For MAG, a Game That Came Far Before Its Time
If you didn’t play MAG (Massive Action Game), it was a unique online game for the PlayStation 3 that unfortunately shut down in 2014. Even though it’s been over ten years, I still consider it one of the most exciting multiplayer games I’ve ever experienced. The basic idea was to pick one of three private military companies and participate in a continuous, evolving conflict called the “Shadow War.” Success for one faction directly impacted the game’s storyline. Each faction had a different style: I always played as Raven, focusing on accuracy and advanced technology, while SVER favored guerilla warfare and Valor had a more traditional military feel.
Overwatch’s new event, where you pick a side, feels a lot like the clan system in the older game MAG, which brought back some great memories. MAG has largely been forgotten, but it was a really unique game. Players chose from three distinct factions, each with its own look, weapons, and feel, and then battled it out on huge maps. While choosing factions was cool, the real standout feature of MAG was its massive Domination matches – a whopping 256 players at once! That set a record when the game came out, and even today’s big FPS games don’t usually reach that scale. For example, Battlefield 2042 had 128 players, and its maps were already considered enormous. In MAG, each team in a Domination match had 128 players!
The game received a new 3v3 mode called Escalation through downloadable content, pitting all three factions against each other in battles with up to 96 players. Alongside this, the game also offered modes for 64 and 128 players, providing a good range of competitive multiplayer options.
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Looking back, MAG was truly groundbreaking for its time – the fact that it supported 256-player battles on the PlayStation 3 is amazing. It wasn’t flawless, though. The shooting wasn’t as refined as in games like Call of Duty. The Shadow War, while a cool idea, wasn’t explained well within the game itself, forcing players to find updates online. Matches could be uneven, but when they were balanced, the experience was unlike anything else. I believe that if MAG were released today, with modern features like regular story updates, battle passes, and a free-to-play model, it would be a huge success. Unfortunately, despite its innovative ideas, the game developed by Zipper Interactive seems destined to be forgotten as time goes on.
MAG May Be Dead, But Overwatch’s Conquest is a Fun Spiritual Successor
Image via Blizzard I know the old game MAG was very different from typical hero shooters, so any similarities between its Shadow War mode and the recent Overwatch event are likely just coincidences. But that doesn’t make the Overwatch event any less thrilling! It’s something I’ve always wanted to see in a live-service game, and looking back at MAG, I now understand why. I’ve often wished Fortnite would do a big crossover event like Marvel versus DC, and it turns out I was unknowingly hoping for something like MAG. While Overwatch doesn’t have the massive 256-player battles of MAG, it does offer the player-driven faction versus faction gameplay I’ve been wanting to see in another shooter. For me, this event is the most exciting part of Overwatch‘s Season 1 relaunch, even more so than the name change or the new heroes. Hopefully, if it’s successful, it will inspire a developer to create a new game focused on large-scale faction warfare, similar to the fantastic, but often forgotten, PS3 game I loved.
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2026-02-07 18:49