With the release of Overwatch 2 this past month, which brought new changes to the game, Brophy’s championship-winning Overwatch Esports team is working to adapt to new changes. They hope to improve from previous years and are excited about potential newfound competition. 

For context, Overwatch is a team-based 5 versus 5 shooter game with 35 different playable characters split into 3 classes: tank, damage, and support characters. Tanks play the role of taking the most damage, at the forefront, leading the charge. Damage characters are in charge of outputting the most damage on the team, slowly dismantling the enemy team player by player. Finally, support characters are in charge of keeping the team alive through healing abilities, shielding, and boosting damage. 

A member of the team since freshman year Jacob Sesate ’23 is the team’s primary strategist. Previously, Jacob Sesate played as the team’s second tank, but now with the reduction to one tank per team with Overwatch 2, he will now be in the damage role. 

In response to a question about how he feels about the impact of Overwatch 2’s release, he said “It’ll be positive because there’s going to be more attention and hopefully new players will try out.” 

Last year saw the departure of two significant players with the team actively looking for new members. For the most part, the core of the team remains the same, all of them have played together for a couple of seasons now.

As of now, the team is in the offseason and has only had 2 practices. Their season will begin in the spring which gives the group time to figure out any kinks they might have in wake of Overwatch 2’s balance changes. 

“I hope to win again,” Jacob Sesate said. “If we learned the way we learned last year going to nationals, for the whole season, I think we’re going to probably win.”

Asher Martin ’23 is a newer member of the Overwatch team, having only joined last year. As for his role, he plays damage and will also play a more flexible role, accommodating for the rest of the team and their roles. Martin mentioned that as for the characters he plays, nothing has changed mechanically. 

The main thing for him is experimenting with different characters due to the addition of three new characters, as well as changes to old ones. 

“I think that with Overwatch 2 there are more characters available for us to play, so I think that’s more for our team to reach out and try different team compositions,” said Martin.

As for the upcoming season, Martin is confident in the team’s ability to make it back to the national stage. 

“I’m excited, senior year on the Overwatch team. Coming from nationals last year and winning. We lost half our team, so we’re looking to build it back up and I think we have the potential to winning again, if not win,”  Martin said, “We just have to work hard in the offseason to make sure we have our best year,”.

The rest of the squad consists of Spencer Cowles ’23, Wesley Fulton ’23, and Justin Sesate ’24.

Cowles has been on the team since his Sophomore year, same with Fulton. Justin Sesate has been on the team for 3 years. 

“We’ll be fine,” said Cowles. “Our competition has been fairly easy most times, but we did lose 2 seniors last year so it’ll be interesting.”