Kevin ”AZK” Lariviere playing in iBUYPOWER. Foto: Hltv.org

As Keven ”AZK ”Lariviere leaves the notorious iBUYPWER scandal behind him, his focus have now shifted towards a new game.

The future is set for another pro gamer career – this time in Overwatch.

And according to the North American player, Blizzards new game could tap into a new market which games such as CS:GO by in large have missed.

– I think this game will get extremely big in Asia and that might be a scene that could quickly surpass CS’s Asian one in terms of player base, AZK tells Aftonbladet Esport ahead of the game’s launch.

The open beta for Blizzards latest project, Overwatch, has ended. The game is set to release on 24th of May, and many hope the FPS title will become a new giant esport. One of them is Keven ”AZK” Lariviere.

The american player is notorious for his time in the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team iBUYPOWER. He was one of the players who got banned for life in the now widely known match fixing scandal, a chapter the player himself has put behind him and doesn’t want to talk about. Now his future is set for a career in Overwatch.

– I think the game has immense potential, AZK tells Aftonbladet Esport as we reached him ahead of the open beta. He continues:

– I wouldn’t be surprised if it reaches a similar level to CS within a year or two. I also think this game will get extremely big in Asia and that might be a scene that could quickly surpass CS’s asian one in terms of player base.

A new beginning

AZK have teamed up with a new organization, as he and his squad joined forces with Team Liquid. While the game gets closer to release, the fight for a spot among the top teams get harder and harder.

– I think if we keep putting in the hours and try to enter as many tournaments as we can, we will reach the level that we are aiming for. It was hard to get a good group of six together and we were changing and trying players for a while. I believe this slowed us down quite a lot in the past.

How did the team come together?

– I actually met Tim ”Dummy” Olson in a Reflex server, he was smurfing and using timers and I thought to myself ”damn, who is this guy? he’s pretty sick”, AZK says laughing and continues:

– I learned a little later that he was playing for a team called Not Enigma which was a top North American team during the first beta phase. He told me his team was gonna break up and that he was interesting in playing with me for the 2nd phase of beta. I pretty much agreed instantly as I was eager to begin competing and I also didn’t really know anyone or much about the game back then.

On a more personal level, what do you think about the game play?

– It’s extremely fun and I personally got attached to the game very fast. A complaint I would have about it, would be that some heroes and spells feel very casual and require little to no skill. I do think they over-simplified a lot of things, but I suppose there are positives and negatives about this.

”Some heroes are just so simple to play”

While AZK refers from talking to much about his past and the iBUYPOWER scandal, it’s when it comes to the topic of potential changes in the game that the Team Liquid players opens up.

– There’s a lot of things that they need to work on, and I’m sure they realize that. First one for me, would be to implement a better interface and UI for the stopwatch competitive setting, or simply create a completely new setting. There have been a few interesting ideas proposed by the community about this subject already.

– Another thing would be the netcode. Dying behind walls so often doesn’t make sense. Another point I would have about this would be about the movement, I feel like some kind of air control of air strafing to a certain extent would add a lot of depth in terms of skill ceiling. Right now some heroes are just so simple to play and can become boring quite quickly in my opinion. My final point and probably the most important, is that they need to implement a limit of 1 hero per team. To be honest, I’m baffled that this isn’t implemented yet. It’s impossible to balance the game perfectly if you allow multiple of the same heroes per team, and on top of that, it makes for a terrible viewing experience for the spectators when there’s 4 tracer’s and monkey’s jumping and flying everywhere on the screen.

However, although many changes could be made, it’s generally with positivity and enthusiasm that AZK answers my questions. And as the FPS gets closer to release, AZK encourages everyone to try the game:

– Overwatch is an extremely fun new game, and it feels very refreshing as its very different from anything else on the market right now.