Still the cleanest hero-shooter gunplay on the market, slowed by a shop that never stops testing your price tolerance.
Tested score / 100
Buy below: Free to play. The real spend lives in cosmetics and passes, not the entry.
The engine remains the genre's performance reference: 300+ fps at 1080p on a mid-range rig, frame pacing flat enough for high-refresh play, and hero visual readability that no competitor has matched. Blizzard permits Steam Deck play via Proton at a solid 50-60 fps, which is rarer than it should be at this scale.
The server tickrate and rollback work keep high-refresh play honest, and the replay viewer encodes matches compactly enough to share. The Battle.net link is a one-time step; after that, the Steam build behaves like a native client.
The replay encoder and highlight system ship in-client: 1080p60 captures with negligible frame cost, which makes the coaching loop — record, review, share — the best-integrated in the hero shooter tier.
Matchmaking telemetry is now visible in-client: post-match latency and queue health readouts mean the usual server excuses are gone, and our ping logs stayed inside 40 ms to the nearest region across the test window.
The Steam build links to Battle.net in one step, and account merge carries console progress. Crossplay pools differ by input, and both are healthy.
Five-v-five with a solo tank sharpened the pace: fights are shorter, carries matter more, and the role-queue structure keeps the sandbox legible. Seasonal hero releases continue at a steady cadence, and balance patches actually move numbers.
The persistent sore spot is content direction. The promised PvE future contracted into paid mission packs and event modes, and veterans measure seasonal pacing against what was promised in 2022. New players feel none of this; the loop itself is excellent.
The seasonal hero cadence is now predictable, and balance patches move numbers every two weeks, which keeps the sandbox from calcifying. The roster passed forty heroes; every one is unlockable by play, and role queue keeps team composition honest.
The stadium mode added a persistent build layer that scratches the drafting itch between seasons, and its separate economy is strictly opt-in, a rare bit of restraint in the modern live-service playbook.
Hero design discipline has held: new kits ship readable, with ability silhouettes distinct at any range, and the balance team guts over-performers within a patch instead of letting a season rot — a habit the original game was famous for.
Free to play with every hero unlocked through play, and the battle pass is optional. The store is where the design intent shows: mythic skins at $20+, bundle-first layouts, and rotating FOMO. Nothing sold touches balance, but the drip is relentless.
The wait verdict is a judgement on value trajectory, not quality: content pace has slowed while store prices climbed. Play it free, decide on your own wallet, and revisit if the seasonal cadence recovers.
Mythic skins evolve in real time, which is a genuinely new cosmetic feature and genuinely expensive. The community's standing advice holds: the free track of the battle pass plus hero unlocks covers the entire gameplay experience, and the store is strictly opt-in.
The engine is excellent and it knows it: 300+ fps at 1080p on mid-range hardware with near-flat frame pacing.
Seasonal patches are uneventful in the good way. Role queue and matchmaking infra have been stable for two years.
$20+ mythic skins, bundle-first store design, and the paid PvE walk-back remain the community's open wound. Balance is untouched by purchases.
Steam version still requires a Battle.net account link. Blizzard explicitly permits Steam Deck play via Proton, unlike most kernel-driver peers.
Full native gamepad support tuned per hero; controller play is viable at every rank.
Sanctioned Proton play on Steam Deck at 50-60 fps; the only hero shooter of this size that works handheld.
Free entry and full hero access, with seasonal content paced slower than the community would like and a shop priced for whales.
The score is weighted from re-runnable dimensions, with the evidence recorded row by row above. Games we have not tested get no score and show "Not tested". Thresholds and weights live in src/lib/; the content layer holds facts only.
Full method in Methodology.
