The first day of BlizzCon has come to a close and with it came a slew of exciting announcements for Blizzard’s newest IP, Overwatch. Mike Mohrenheim took to the stage in the opening ceremony of BlizzCon to detail a few of the milestones the first person shooter game has reached, from introducing a new hero to the roster only a few weeks after the game’s release to a new map a few weeks after that to entertaining seasonal game modes. However, the big announcement at BlizzCon’s opening ceremony was the unveiling of their newest hero, Sombra.
Before I expand upon Sombra, a special mention must be given to the ARG that led up to her reveal. The Alternate Reality Game started back when the first new hero, Ana Amari, was added to Overwatch. Hints and clues were left in developer videos, in-game, on the Overwatch website and other forms of media, prompting the gaming community to decipher said clues. While the ARG started off on good footing, it soon went sour as players felt distraught that each clue led to countdowns and subtle delays. Soon it was apparent that the new hero would be unveiled at BlizzCon.
Sombra is a stealthy, offensive havoc-hero, capable of teleporting behind enemy lines, disabling enemy abilities with one of her abilities and her ultimate, all while dishing out a modicum of damage. And when finding herself in a tough spot or needing to sneak behind tanks, she can activate a cloaking mechanism, rendering herself invisible to the enemy. In many ways, she seems like the Spy from Team Fortress 2, however, she, thankfully, lacks a one-hit kill attack.
A separate Overwatch panel went into detail about the new character, revealing that while she may currently be allied with the antagonists of the game’s lore, she’s very much on her own side. It should also be interesting to note that with the two Sombra videos, one being Blizzard’s newest animated short movie and the other being Sombra’s Origin Story, we’ve seen a lot more about the universe in which Overwatch exists in.
Fortunately for fans of the game, Sombra wasn’t the only new addition to the game. Jeff Kaplan, Michael Chu, Arnold Tsang and Geoff Goodman also expanded upon a new game mode that will make its way to the game’s Public Test Realm (PTR) sometime in the coming week. Called Arcade, the new game mode will house a variety of fun new ways to play the game, from solo 1v1 matches, to 3v3 game modes as well as the older brawl modes. The arcade will be curated over time, with new game modes added to it and older ones rotated out depending on community feedback. Furthermore, players will be able to earn up to three loot boxes a week, one for every three games they win in Arcade. What’s best is that the nine games you need to win to earn all three loot boxes can be spread out over any of the fun game modes available in Arcade. To house some of the new game modes that will feature smaller teams, the developers are also releasing a new map, Ecopoint Antarctica, which is built around smaller team sizes.
A new map, Oasis, is also in the works and will be available on the PTR sometime in December with the developers looking at an early 2017 release for the normal game. Oasis, as you can guess, is themed around the Middle-East and features an advanced city built in the middle of the desert. Oasis will be of the control map variant, aka King of the Hill, and will feature new interactable objects like jump pads. However, the developer team have stressed that the map is still in early iterations and is subject to change.
Another important game changing update to note is that the Overwatch team will be introducing a single hero limit to Quick Play, due to the toxicity associated with hero-stacking – a composition made up of the same hero. As a result, it looks like Overwatch will technically have 3 aspects of gaming, with Competitive being for serious players, Quick Play being for less serious matches and Arcade, where players can wind down after a long day or warm up before stepping into QP or competitive matches.
Speaking of competitive, Blizzard also announced the start of the Overwatch League. The league will see competitive organisations bid to represent cities around the world. Once an organisation has been given a city, they will then begin to form a roster of players to represent the city. This is a push to make the competitive overwatch scene more regional, with fans showing support for the team that represents their city, similar to how traditional sports like football are structured.
