Overwatch Vs Paladins – Which is One Better?

It’s evident from the title we’re going to compare Paladins and Overwatch. I have played Overwatch for more than 220 hours and Paladins for about 100 minutes only. 

But I have done my research, and this is not meant to be an article where we just bash Paladins. Paladins is actually a good game like it’s not better, but it’s good and a lot cheaper.

Both games include microtransactions but hey, don’t cry about it.

Comparison

Let’s break it down, Overwatch is blizzards newest IP and the company’s first entry into the first-person-shooter market. Two teams of six players choose from two dozen unique heroes and face off in terms of offence and defense on a variety of maps with objectives like assault, payload, and hybrid and capture the points that are selected at random. 

Characters typically fall into one of four roles including offence, defense, tank and support though. These roles are more like suggestions for some of the Paladins champions of the realm is a first-person shooter made by HI-REZ studios and its set in a colorful high fantasy world. 

Two teams of five players lock into one of almost 30 champions available in a draft like selection process. Then, they face off in one of three game modes, siege, payload or onslaught. Characters fall under one of four roles; frontline, damage, supports and flank. 

Champions then earn extra credits towards levelling up their character in-game by doing tasks that their roles specialize in. Obviously, you can see the similarities, but I hope you can also pick up the differences that do give these two games slightly different feels.

Characters

Overwatch’s characters are iconic and meant to be recognizable in a flash. They’re colorful, diverse and memorable. They can be seen everywhere in the artwork on convention floors and even in paladins. When the original rosters for Paladins came out, everyone pointed out the similarities to the cast of Overwatch. Since its announcement though, Paladins roster has become more diverse and even larger than Overwatch. 

Paladin’s roster is set in a high fantasy world which means we get to see a world where we’re apparently the last of our kind unless you’re a human or an elf. It has a dragon, goblin, an anthropomorphic fox, a tree and orc and even a living bomb. What does Overwatch have, a gorilla? 

Overwatch and Paladin’s may share a genre, but they are in two different environments. One covers realistic sci-fi earth and the other covers a magical plane of existence respectfully. Overwatch’s characters have a humanity about them that helps players connect and build stories. Paladin’s characters are fun and relatively simple. There’s more to see below the surface if you care to look like.

Gameplay

Overwatch comes with all the material ready to play, but Paladins has more than half of its characters behind an unlocked strength. This is not as noticeable in Paladins, as you locked into one hero for an entire match. While Overwatch encourages its players to swap between heroes when situations arise. 

Many players don’t swap characters, but the option exists for when you’re getting hard countered, or you see an opportunity to better play the current situation etc. Paladins, like many MOBAs, have you stick it out with a character as you level them up in the game. So if you get countered hard or find that you’re being ineffective, there’s always next match. 

Paladins is a free-to-play game that promises all heroes to anyone willing to put down 20 US dollars. Overwatch gives you all of their heroes for now and forever after you pay 60 US dollars to buy the game. So, while Overwatch has spoiled me, I will admit, and the unlock process is more reminiscent of the MOBA genre. This is hero shooters HI-Rez! Let the players play!

Another point will give to Paladin goes to their playlist for separate game modes. Overwatch breaks into casual competitive and arcade. Paladins allow its players to look for specific rule sets just like other shooter games in case you don’t want to play Elios for the 30th time today. 

Once into a game, Overwatch will be sure to tell you what your team is trying to accomplish, where to go and what your team composition might be lacking. Teams starting their spawns with time to repair their defence or see how messy they can make a room in 60 seconds. 

Paladins have less exciting spawn rooms but fewer arcade machines to destroy. They do have one cool thing that Overwatch lacks ‘horses’! In some game types, this is just a speed boost in the form of the amount that will get you back into the action faster after you die. In other modes, you can toggle your mount whenever you have a few free seconds.

As soon as you activate an ability or fire your gun, the horse disappears. It’s much faster to get back into the action than you would at a walking speed. Both games have you fight for victory, experience and most importantly, sweet randomly-generated loots.

Unlocks

Remember when I told you not to cry microtransactions, well now you can cry out because both blizzard and HI-REZ decide to play to your collecting instinct. While Overwatch is chests or only cosmetic, Paladins trends into dangerous RNG territory. 

Paladins have one very distinct mechanic over Overwatch, and that is its card system. Each champion has a set of cards that improves skills health, reduce cooldowns and more that you can set up before each match and a loadout of five cards. 

Cards of rarity levels like in any card system and each card has four ranks. Loadouts have a rank limit so players can’t simply have five ranks four cards. But this system has its apparent grievances. It favours those who buy chests and those lucky enough to get good cards for players that they have unlocked or even good at. Plus let’s hope an opponent or worse one of your teammates doesn’t pick your hero that you super decked out first. 

Back to chest though Paladins tries to milk more from you by teasing an extra card that you could earn by buying a temporary boost, which is just plain underhanded. When I first saw that I nearly uninstalled the game right there out of spite. 

Can you imagine if you opened a pack of Pokémon trading cards and the last card in the pack was half of a Charizard card saying that you could pay the shipping to have the top half sent in the mail?

In truth, both Overwatch and Paladins use loot boxes to keep afloat. Therefore, both games convince you that you instead open more boxes and get more things than hold onto your cash. But at least if you don’t do it in Overwatch, you’re just missing out on making tracer looks like she came from a track and field event. 

Paladins have its own share of cosmetics, but they’re small accessories, weapon, skins and the occasional skin recoloring. Keep in mind that Paladins are still in beta, and more big items like the legendary skins and emotes may come along. Though, I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed in the cosmetics because they could easily get lost in matches. 

Graphics

Now I want to talk about graphics but before I do that I want to stress once again that Paladins is a free game. That being said, Overwatch is gorgeous to me, the maps are colorful while being semi-realistic. Maps are filled with small items like lanterns that sway in the wind, railings that breakaway and squeegee turnips that fill you with joy as you walk over them. 

Also Read: Best Graphics Cards for Gaming

Maps are set at different times of day in different countries around the world and even off-world now. On higher settings, you can see that character’s outfits are made of various materials. While, it’s not photorealistic like many games aim for, Overwatch is stylized in an almost Pixar like style. 

Paladin’s is also heavily stylized but in such a way that some characters look simply rubbery. Maps are filled with colorful decorations that stay stationary even after time bombs and hyper beams go off. This is how Paladin’s be more accessible on all levels of PC.

Paladin’s lives in a cartoon style that gets away with that its prize points but if his game was a AAA title. These graphics would feel very lacking, and it reminds me of a lot of Xbox 360 great graphics.

You can also check our this guide on Best Overwatch Settings for better gameplay.

Fan Base

Overwatch has bragged about having a huge fan base boasting, 40 million players earlier this year and it shows. It’s not hard to find something Overwatch related online and in real life. But fans are the result of a growing game that’s been cultivated by its developers.

Interaction with your fan base builds trust and shows as you are willing to listen to criticism. So how does Paladin sit on this scope? Actually, believe it or not, it is quite popular. Paladins have an active subreddit with tens of thousands of subscribers at the time of posting, full of discussions on balance and strategy. There’s art being shared and memes being told again and again, but this is just the community side.

Anyone playing “For Honor” knows you can have plenty of Reddit subscribers and still get scraps from the publishers. Well if you head over to the official Paladins Twitter, you will see about the same as you’d see on the Overwatch Twitter account.

Fanart is being retweeted from artists with proper tags and teasers leading up to announcements. Both games are relatively active on social media and occasionally respond to us peons vying for their attention. 

Read: Best Rainmeter Skins for Gamers

Updates

From a technical standpoint, both games received regular updates. Patch notes come out for Overwatch about once every two weeks, give or take a little when big releases are on the horizon. 

Paladins patches have been relatively consistent this year sometimes releasing week at a time. This seems a tad excessive even for a game in beta. Still, hopefully, this storm of rough patches is leading their ship at the calmer waters. Like in any matching support often goes unnoticed and underappreciated. 

It may not seem like a big deal, but that’s a gamer who has played franchises that were left out to dry after their release. It’s refreshing to know that a publisher has faith in their own product. So, in the end, how does Paladin stack up against Overwatch?

Final Verdict

Well, in my mind, Overwatch is the superior game, and playing Paladins only made me want to go play Overwatch more. But or a free-to-play game still in beta with new content coming out regularly, Paladin’s is by no means something to sneeze at. Heck if this was Paladin vs Battle Born, we have a pretty close call in my mind. In the end, you get what you pay for with either game. 

So, what do you think which game do you prefer and why?