I’ve had a growing resentment towards cash-grabby crossovers bubbling up inside me for awhile, but Overwatch 2’s Transformers crossover has finally pushed me over the edge. This probably isn’t a very popular opinion yet, but this era of IP swapping and limited-time crossover events built around gross monetization is corrosive to art and culture, and I can only see it getting worse. I can’t b🧔e the only one that feels like all these crossovers are pathetic and pandering, right?
The whole crossover thing has been a slow burn, and until very recently, done mostly with creative intention. Crossovers used 🐼to be reserved for easter eggs and little references. Game studios used them to shout each other out, like the Metal Gear Solid mini-game in Ape Escape 3, or the secret Spyro demo in Crash Bandicoot: Warped. We saw crossovers as a genre in fighting games like Super Smash Bros. and Marvel Vs. Capcom, and now having crossover characters has become a convention in almost every fighting game series.
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I’m not fundamentally opposed to crossovers when they're done tastefully and with purpose. Heroes of the Storm worked because, while all of Blizzard’s games exist in their own universe, they are united by virtue of being Blizzard games. I’m not a big fan of the Rabbids, but Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle does a great job blending the tone and style of both worlds together. I’ve praised Monster Hunter World’s crossovers, especially the Witcher one, for the way they inject the essence of the games it borrows into the Monster Hunter formula so seamlessly. If you wanna roll around as Sonic in Super Monkey Ball or watch Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright spar in court, be my guest. Crossovers can be great, but lately they aren’t.
It’s easy to blame Fortnite for the turn crossovers have taken, s🦹o I will. I hate the idea of taking a beloved character, removing from them all of the context and identity that makes them beloved in the first place, then charging people $20 to wear their skin. I know Fortnite does some cool things with its character crossovers, but there’s no denying it kicked off a trend of cynical crossover events across the live-service genre that might make money, but makes no sense.
Master Chief in Rainbow Six, Mass Effect in Destiny 2, Final Fantasy 7 in Apex Legends, Megatron in Overwatch 2, the list goes on. I’m willing to give a pass to the ones that fit together well, like Sea of Thieves and Monkey Island, but for📖 every one of those, there are ten mo𒁃re times the Ninja Turtles showed up in a game for no reason.
These disgusting products of pure unfiltered capitalism just gross me out. I fear things will only get worse as corporations rake in obscene amounts of money from unwashed masses who see a Gundam and reflexively hit Add to Cart. Fandom is an incredibly powerful thing, but this rancid IP soup w෴e&rsꦍquo;ve all been slurping is giving me a stomach ache.
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