The recent success of deadlock and overwatch 2 have really proven to me something that I've always thought Gunplay & mechanics are secondary or even tertiary reasons for FPS/Moba/TeamPvP games in this era to be considered a success. UNIQUE & MEMORABLE character designs where their PERSONALITY shows are what actually makes games that draw people in. A unique setting showcases that even better, but without strong characters any setting just falls flat. I cant even begin to name the amount of games that I felt the 'gunplay' or 'mechanics' felt solid, but i couldnt remember the names of any of the heroes or characters weeks after I played it. All of those games died quickly and did not stick. I feel the industry has kind of solved or learned how to make these just at a baseline good nomatter what, and the hard part is making a world that people want to actually talk about or share content around. In this day having characters that will drive someone to make a fanart, fanedit, or any post has so much more value then anything else. I personally tried deadlock bc i saw funny posts on X about the characters and the recent character designs to me are SOO cool that I want to try them out and learn more. That has driven me to be interested in the game way more than my background as someone who actively played League for 10 Years, CSGO for 2, and Overwatch for 6 Years. I think this can be extrapolated to so much of modern media but this same reason is why I think Esports has just suffered so much. It doesn't matter how good the broadcast is or the quality of it, the story is what drives the needle. Not the quality of gameplay. This was different in the past but maybe ill rant about it later.