Keeping everyone on their best behavior, at least in theory
The Overwatch team has put in a lot of effort over the past few years to help make the game as enjoyable for players as possible by curbing toxicity, and one of the best moves in that direction was adding endorsements to the game.
Apparently, the mechanic helped curb bad behavior by 40% back in 2019 when they were first added. Originally introduced back in the days of the first Overwatch game, endorsements are a way for players to reward their teammates for good behavior, like good communication, teamwork, or just generally good play. Back in the day, they were broken out into categories like “Shot Caller” or “Good Teammate,” but now you get awarded with a simple “Endorsement.”
So the endorsement system in Overwatch 2 has obviously changed, but how exactly does it work this time around? Let’s break it down.
Giving endorsements
After each match, you’ll be able to give out up to two endorsements, but with a few caveats — you can’t endorse the same player more than once every twelve hours, and you can’t endorse your friends or enemy players. Other than that, feel free to dole out your endorsements as you please. Every time you give out an endorsement, you all get some extra XP to work through the Battle Pass tiers faster, but if you’re like me and you don’t care about the Battle Pass, you get the satisfaction of making someone else feel good, which is even better.
To endorse other players, all you have to do is wait for the game’s end screen, and then press “N” on the keyboard if you’re playing on PC, or click the left stick if you’re playing on console (there should be a prompt that says “Endorse other players”). Then scroll over to whichever player you want to award, who is shown as the hero they ended the game as along with their name, and simply click on them. Ta-da! You’ve endorsed someone. Feels good, doesn’t it?
Receiving endorsements
Of course, you can also receive endorsements, a notification for which will pop up on the left side of your screen after a match if you’ve received one. You can’t miss it. Every player has a different endorsement level based on how many endorsements they’ve received, and the frequency with which they’ve received them. The levels go from 1 to 5 (1 being the worst, 5 being the best), and each player’s current level is shown to the right of their character portrait. If you want to check on what your own endorsement level is, just click on your profile icon in the top right corner of the main menu, and the number will be in the little pop-up menu right next to your name.
Endorsement levels can also go down, which happens if other players report you, go you a certain number of matches in a row without being endorsed, or if you leave too many matches too early. Speaking from experience, maintaining a high level, especially a five, is a difficult task, so any highly-endorsed players you come across are really doing the work to be a good teammate.
Making the game better for everyone
The endorsement system certainly isn’t perfect, and it’s not a cure for all of the toxicity you can still encounter in the game, but it’s a nice feature that helps you acknowledge and encourage your teammates, especially when not everyone is communicating in the team chat. While the Battle Pass XP is a suitable reward, I’d love to see Blizzard take extra steps to incentivize players to get a higher endorsement level. Considering cosmetics are such a huge deal in the game, I’d love to see them add something like an exclusive Level 5 endorsement emote, charm, or skin to make good behavior all that more desirable.
For now, though, keep dishing out your endorsements to deserving players, and hopefully, you’ll get some in return.
