Blizzard's games have a certain cult-like behavior to them, that draws players to keep on playing them, even if the games have major issues. The fact that Overwatch is seemingly a more ESG-friendly game, compared to Halo Infinite and Battlefield 2042 (the only notable ESG design for that game is making Sundance a Black French non-binary anarchist with a wingsuit), plays a factor as well.
The only other games that I can think of that have just as low standards is the Pokémon games.
That's a pretty unfair comparison for the Pokemon games.
Sure - the games tend to be samey and gimmicky, but at least they
try new things and formats in an attempt to keep it fresh.
Off the top of my head
- Pokemon can learn to use "held items", either RPG style items or Berries
- Pokemon can fight in 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 formats.
- Pokemon can occupy a ton of different "states" during battle (Dig puts you underground, Fly in the air, Dive underwater, Minimize behind a copy, etc) and there are specific moves that target these "states" (Earthquake does 2x to underground monsters, Smackdown cancels Fly, etc)
- A complete "typing" overhaul (rebalancing the types - adding Dark, Steel, and Fairy)
- Pokemon can control (and fight for control) of the weather during battle (Rain dance makes it rain, I forget the name but makes it sunny, Sand storm causes a sandstorm)
- Pokemon also spawn with innate abilities (and have a pool of 2/3 options) that will affect how it's used (aka No Guard means no attacks will miss so you can load up on huge 50 accuracy moves). These abilities can be tampered with though combat also.
These are all
just battle related over the years - which is to say nothing over the "side games" (Pokemon Snap, Pokemon Go!, Pokemon Let's Go!, Pokemon Stadium/XD, Pokken Fighter, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Arceus) or concepts like the Pokewalker.
Overwatch 1 to Overwatch 2
- Format forcibly changed from 6v6 to 5v5
- New skins
- Some character retools to account for a 1 tank format
- Monetization change from lootboxes to Battlepass
The Overwatch dev cycle and content update pace makes the Pokemon devs look like
all stars by comparison.