Overwatch’s 3v3 Elimination Mode - Making Everything Matter

In any average Overwatch match, there’s going to be a lot of shooting and ability use all across the map. There’s a lot of noise being created from all of the characters, making it feel all the more satisfying when you land a good ultimate that cuts through all the noise to win the match.





While this is fun, there’s almost no tension involved in most of your average game. Because there are so many players creating so much noise, it’s sometimes hard to feel like your contributions really matter. This is why I love the 3v3 Elimination Mode. Everything that you do in Overwatch matters ten times more in this mode.





Because there’s no respawns, hero choice becomes much more important for every round, as well as overall team composition. A healing support matters so much more here, especially with no health packs on the map itself. The lack of players means that everyone needs to carry their weight more, and mistakes from a single person on the team can lead to defeat. This lack of players also leads to really feeling the strengths and weaknesses of each hero in the game.





For instance, in a normal match Roadhog can usually hide somewhere on the map away from most of the shooting to heal himself, the downside of that ability being that he can’t move when he activates it. However, in Elimination, it becomes much more difficult to find a place to safely heal with less overall players and a lack of an objective to pull attention. If you stop your movement to heal, the other team will take advantage.





In this same vein cooldowns become much more important, as it’s much easier to capitalize on a missed ability with the mode’s smaller map. By removing the all the noise of a regular game (they also did this literally, there’s no music in this mode so you focus harder on your play), a greater focus is put on every action you make in the game.





There’s a genuine fear to playing Elimination. Not knowing where the enemy is, the fear of messing up or getting caught out, or even not knowing if you picked the right characters.





The devs of Overwatch once said they chose six players to a team in a normal game because it was the perfect number so that everyone felt like they could make a difference, but if a single player wasn’t pulling their weight they wouldn’t pull the entire team down.





While it works great in the normal game mode, it’s nice to have a mode where everything matters more, a mode that can be stressful and can highlight the amazing hero design Overwatch is known for. Elimination provides that experience.