14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard Entertainment has apparently already made up its mind regarding the FOV options in the upcoming team-based multiplayer shooter Overwatch.
A thread on Reddit shows that a company representative posted Blizz's stance on field of view, regarded as an important element in any shooter, due to the many layouts gamers use to enjoy their hobby.
Selecting the improper field of view for their monitor or distance from their television set can cause many gamers to feel nauseous, preventing them from enjoying the action. If you'd like to find out more about FOV, how it works and why it's important, you can give the video below a look.
In any case, Blizzard's stance is to implement a fixed vertical FOV of 60, which translates into a horizontal field of view of around 92, with a now standard 16:9 screen, and to remove the option to tinker with it, in order to avoid a situation of "Haves and Have-Nots, where those who are aware of the slider are able to gain an advantage over those who aren't."
Many gamers usually tweak this option, opting for a narrower one in order to make objects appear bigger on screen, or a wider angle so their peripheral vision can spot enemies easier.
An FOV of 120 makes you feel like a very fast insect
During the glory days of Quake, it was not uncommon for players to use an FOV setting as wide as 120 degrees, in order to spot lateral targets more easily, which came in handy due to the fact that movement used to be so chaotic and fast that you pretty much needed to see as much as possible at any point in time.
Nowadays games focus more on tunnel vision, even those that still enable crazy movement patterns, like Valve's Team Fortress 2. In that particular case, it's partly due to the game mechanics, requiring people to be unable to spot approaching spies.
Anyway, Blizzard pledged to take aiming preferences, viewmodels, dizziness and nausea into account while designing Overwatch and the FOV.
A branching Reddit thread points out that the math behind the initial post is wrong, but the problem still stands, if Blizzard is not willing to enable users to customize the setting.
If you happen to be one of the unfortunate gamers who require specific settings in order to play first-person shooters, you can follow the discussion in order to find out how to improve your situation.
