So, if you haven’t been living under a rock as an Overwatch fan you’ll know that the new archives event, Storm Rising (SR), just launched.

Everyone was excited and then…

The backlash.

Many things went wrong. So many. Here are some:

1) Overselling in promotions

The trailer for SR was great. The blog posts (other than a glaring typo of the hurricane name) were nice. But they didn’t deliver.

And this isn’t something like a movie not delivering on a trailer. If you take the formulas of past trailers and apply it to this one, you didn’t experience it the way the trailer presented it to you. You didn’t slam Talon Operatives into buildings, ride a motorcycle, or slice cars. If we weren’t going to be able to do it, you shouldn’t have put it in the trailer. Most of the footage in the trailer was strictly cut scene footage and the next reason is probably why that is.

2) Length

While I didn’t officially time the difference between Uprising, Retribution, and SR - it feels much shorter. And that’s glaringly obvious. There isn’t as much attention to detail or interactions. Even the waves are shorter. The amount of map points of interest (locations where action takes place) is fewer than even Uprising.

3) Getting rid of what was loved

What did people love in Uprising and Retribution?

Character interactions, lore, revealed content, PVE battles, and new mechanics

There were hardly any character interactions. Lore that was revealed didn’t make up for questions discovered by cut scenes. PVE battles were simplified, shorter, and lackluster. They used the same enemies and mechanics as Retribution.

Not to mention we didn’t even get a comic attached to the event.

4) “Chasing the Truth”

We. Didn’t. Chase. Anything.

Sure, we may have gone after Max and may have seen something new. But what’s “the truth”? Is it just a reference to Soujourn? Because in “chasing the truth” we have more questions than answers.

Who does Mercy want to get in contact with and why does Max need to help them?

Who is the Sith Lord Omnic at the end of the cut scene?

Why did they loose communication with Soujourn with no explanation why?

Why is Doomfist talking to the Sith Lord Omnic in Egypt?

What happened to Reinhardt that was referenced in one of the promos?

All of this and more is why this event is failing. Players old and new weren’t expecting something so lackluster across the board and Blizzard has a real storm on their hands.