Last month, Twitch and Overwatch League announced the Overwatch League All-Access Pass, a paid viewership tier intended for Overwatch League superfans. But after using a free preview for the last few weeks (the gated subscription-only mode kicks in on May 16), I'm not convinced why anyone should pay $30 for the service. Most importantly, it doesn't have the one feature that would make it worth the money.
For starters, let's go over what the All-Access Pass does get you. For the fee of $30 ($20 if you have Twitch Prime), you unlock 12 Overwatch League skins in Overwatch itself; access to post-match Q&A sessions with players; special Twitch emotes, chat badges, ad-free viewing of Overwatch League on Twitch, and access to a subscriber-only Twitch chat room; and finally access to the "Command Center"—a special match-day livestream that features alternate in-game camera angles and real-time stats. Your one-time payment grants access for the entire OWL season.
Of those rewards, the Command Center most caught my eye. One of the prime complaints of watching Overwatch League is that it's hard to follow the fast-paced action, and that the camera sometimes fails to show the most interesting parts of a battle. The thought of an extra camera angle jumped out at me, so I was eager to give Command Center a try.
The one thing I wanted from Command Center was to be able to choose my own camera angle and follow specific players throughout a match. Most of Overwatch League's first-person views come via the DPS players, but as a tank player, I'd love to look through the eyes of OWL's Winstons and D.Vas.
Unfortunately, Command Center's extra camera angle isn't much to write home about. Instead of letting me control the action, it's just a secondary third-person view of the battle, not really showing anything you don't see on the main view already. Even worse, the Command Center page crams multiple camera angles onto a single screen, making it so unless you're watching on a massive monitor, you can't really see much of anything on any of them.
Some of the All-Access Pass's unlocks will appeal to diehard OWL fans, but $30 is a tall order. If they let me control my own camera though, I just might think about coughing up the cash.
