I've been lucky enough to get in the Overwatch 2 Beta and I'm guessing I'm not the only one of this forum to have gotten a key (since you could guarantee one Wednesday by watching streamers for 4 hours). I'd love to hear everybody's impression so far.

Here are my quick thoughts:

The game is way more chaotic than OW1 but it is refreshing a lot of fun. The chaos is even worst on new maps since I get lost all the time. As a tank main, it's weird seeing the tank queue being the most popular but they really did a great job upgrading the tanks for the new 5v5 format. Orisa in particular is a blast to play! The push mode is a welcome addition and will get even better as I figure out the maps.

Anybody else get in?

My mate got in before that via the email sign up, which I did but I didn't get in. I've not got time to spend 4 hours watching people play it to get a key (Plus my Blizzard account isn't attached to Twitch), so feel rather cheated here.

From what I watched, it looked the same just upped graphics. Most chaotic sounds bad, and surely caters for the dive meta again. No understandably they are doing all they can to remove GOATS but I'm still have never liked being locked into a role as changing characters of the fly was always meant to be part of their game philosophy. I practically stopped playing ranked and even casual play when they added 2-2-2 and played only Arcade, didn't even know they added open ranked until later. But since the lack of updates, I've kinda moved on to other games (having a digital PS5 and a disc copy of OW on PS4 doesn't help. :P). From what I watched it doesn't look any real different, so I am hoping the PvE bumps up my interest.

From what I've read of Orisa changes, I'm not a fan, as an Orisa main, but that doesn't mean she won't be okay. Part of her skill was using her shield correclty and without it she's just a bullet sponge for enemies to charge their ults but without the sustain like Roadhog.

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You have to remember that all tanks have Roadhog's and Reinhardt's passive in OW2 so they generate less ult charge when damaged and healed (and are more resistant to boops).

Having played most of my games with Orisa yesterday, she feels awesome. Her javelin is good for burst damage and environmental kills, the spin move blocks incoming damage and has been useful for stuff like protecting a risky rez but it's also so fun to back an enemy in a corner or push one of them towards your team plus you can also push people off the map with it. Then fortify is there to provide sustainability since it now gives you extra health.

About the chaos, I think it's going to be a temporary thing. It's already better on old maps where people know the layout inside out. The fact people are trying new things and that the maps are brand new (5 of them I think) is bound to make some games very uneven.

That still doesn't change much as most the time, if I played a damage person I'd use Roadhog (if the enemy had one) as just a bullet sponge to charge my ults, even with Orisa. Sadly, I know why they are making all these changes, moving characters like Doomfist to tank or making Orisa less about holding a position, it's because people want to be the cool damage dealer not a tank. I think they should move Mei to tank if they are going to move Doomfist, her kit makes more sense to be there. Changes to Bastion again, seem like they are trying to get people to play a certain way and that's to me is dive meta. 

Orisa changes are a change to a playstyle I preferred, so while she might be good, it might not be how I prefer her. Using her shield efficiently for one, a lot of players have no idea who it worked which was funny.

Alas, I'm unlikely to get into the beta anyway and at this stage after a year of them basically not releasing anything new for OW1, I just stopped playing well over a year ago, I'm more interested in their PvE mode which this beta isn't for.

My first impressions of the game are really bad tbh. I'm a big fan of Overwatch and have played quite a lot of it throughout it's lifespan even when it was declared "dead" by a lot of people. I don't know whether to blame the Overwatch devs themselves or just the higher ups at Activision Blizzard for the direction it took and is going.

We got 2+ years of absolutely no content in exchange for what? 5v5 (one less tank in play), "better sound", better graphics, new ui and a ping system? All of which could've been added via game updates throughout that same timespan. The physics and, as far as I know, the engine being used are the same. I say "better sound" because what they essentially did was add an audio filter and cranked up the gunfire sound. It doesn't sound bad but the gunfire sound is so obnoxiously loud comparative to the rest of the sound effects it drowns out enemy ability sounds a lot of the time. I can barely hear Sombra's hack sound effects when firing or being fired upon.

As a support player OW2 leaves a lot to be desired in it's current beta state. They barely even touched the role except to nerf brig and the fact that there's one less tank means that the support role is indirectly nerfed as a whole. I'm a Moira main and with one less tank to heal and the battles mostly being chaotic 1v1s, I feel encouraged to dps unlike in OW1 and her dps is pretty bad. There's a lot less team dynamic and gameplay, that's the aspect I like about OW1 and it looks like it's becoming less of a priority in OW2. If a wanted to solo carry a team I'd just play Apex.

I'm sure for dps and ESPECIALLY tank players it feels refreshing but for support players it's same old , same old except now our role is being left in the dust. I feel bad for zen, brig, and ana mains, they have no mobility and in 5v5 it looks like mobility is even more important.

Hopefully the devs realize that the support role needs to be heavily looked at or else they're going to make the same mistake they made with the tanks in OW1, and no one will want to play them. It is a beta after all so they have more than enough resources and time to change things to make it work as a whole.

Overall I dislike how it took over 2ys and counting to deliver these minor QoL updates and how they're treating support players but I'm still cautiously optimistic for the future of the game.

Visually it hasn't moved the bar in the last 6 years, which is sad as we enter a new console generation with higher expectations.

Only had a round as a support role... Which was pretty much identical OW1.0.

So those are my impressions so far.

I really prefer bigger matches (and yes, I know that's much harder to balance in a "hero"-type multiplayer), but much like Destiny 2 moving to 4v4 from 6v6, OW2 moving from 6v6 to a 5v5 is just too intimate (which I had beef with in D2 moving to the aforementioned 4v4).

I would actually prefer if OW2 stuck with 6v6, or even pulled off a 7v7 or 8v8. Again, I understand the balancing nightmare, but this also helps absorb "crappy" players or other AFKs or things like that. Example: at no point in a 64 or 128 player match are you worried about that dude who's AFK, or even 5 of them. You can simply play and there's people everywhere. It's ALSO why I always played Ground War in CoD: 12v12 was such a different dynamic than 6v6.