The developers of hero shooter Overwatch 2 must have dropped a box full of old photographs while clearing the attic, spilling old snapshots of Route 66 onto the floor and getting snared in a nostalgic daze. The game is launching a "Classic" mode today that will let you play the first-person payload pusher as it (mostly) was back in 2016 when the first Overwatch launched. That means 6v6 fights, the original abilities of its heroes, and no limits to stop the entire team picking the same character.
]]>Videogames are full of loops. Often, the loop isn't just a loop in space but a loop of labour, a loop in time. It's a repeated task with a touch of variation from cycle to cycle, typically associated with a character progression system of some kind. The classic one is the town-dungeon loop in an action-RPG such as Diablo 4. You sally forth into the depths with sword and shield, slaughter a bunch of blameless goblins, then orbit triumphantly back to the village square with its 24/7 forge and bustling adventurer's guild. Then off you go, once again, with a Sword +1 and a shield now bearing a Goblin Magnet. There are straightforward equivalents in multiplayer, especially in the wake of Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - sign in, play a few matches, harvest some XP, unlock a new laser sight, equip it, play a few more matches with +5% to your aim.
]]>When Overwatch 2 was first announced at Blizzcon 2019, Blizzard promised an ambitious "highly replayable" PvE component that somewhat justified the '2' at the end of the title. Last night, the Overwatch 2 development team announced that they've scrapped most of their ideas including the Hero Missions mode which had skill trees, levelling up, and other light RPG elements shown off in the trailer below. Instead, they'll be gradually releasing co-op story missions and integrating them into their ongoing seasons, similar to how PvE operated in the first Overwatch.
]]>Yesterday, the US Department Of Justice filed a civil suit against Activision Blizzard, accusing the publisher’s Competitive Balance Tax of capping esports players’ wages and penalising Overwatch and Call Of Duty league teams if they exceeded the salary cap.
]]>Overwatch 2’s third season is well underway, adding more of the usual maps, modes, and cosmetics. The big surprise this season is the Valentine’s themed Loverwatch, a non-canon text adventure that allows you to court either Mercy or Genji. Naturally, I chose to date Genji (described as Overwatch’s “bad boy”), and the results were surprising. It’s cringe-y and occasionally grating, but it’s also surprisingly charming and stuffed with referential humour that OW fans will surely love.
]]>Good news! Blizzard have fixed an Overwatch 2 Kiriko bug that let her teleport while holding the flag in Capture the Flag mode. Bad news! In doing so they seem to have broken the cleanse effect attached to her Swift Step ability, meaning she can no longer purge debuffs. The bug appeared after yesterday's update and isn't mentioned in the patch notes, so yep, it's a bug rather than a balance change. Hopefully she'll get back to cleansing soon.
]]>Overwatch 2's second season has been all about Greek mythology, with several characters receiving skins based on iconic Greek gods. But now that the festive winter event has wrapped up, Overwatch 2 is debuting its next limited-time event Battle for Olympus later today, and it’s reimagining seven characters’ abilities. The free-for-all deathmatch mode begins today and will be around until January 19th.
]]>As you might have noticed, there’s just a few days until Christmas lands on us all like an overladen sleigh pulled by some very exhausted and confused reindeers. Overwatch 2’s marking the occasion by turning robotic damage hero Bastion into a gingerbread automaton with a new legendary skin. Seeing as it’s the holidays, Blizzard are charging just a single Overwatch Coin for the skin, which is way, way less than the thousands that legendaries usually cost. Bastion’s fresh look is also quite a bit more involved than some of the other legendary efforts Blizzard’s dreamt up for Overwatch 2 so far.
]]>Overwatch 2 struggled to quickly apply fixes for issues with its heroes during Season 1, but Blizzard say they’ve managed to sort all that out for the recently minted hero shooter. A hotfixing tool that was used for the first time today means there shouldn’t be any need for more weeks-long absences such as Bastion and Mei’s in Season 1. According to a Twitter thread by Overwatch 2’s commercial lead Jon Spector, the hotfix tool also lets Blizzard apply hero rebalances much more quickly. It doesn’t all sound like plain sailing, though.
]]>Free to play hero shooter Overwatch 2 welcomes Season 2 early next week, and with that comes some more hero balance changes and a new theme. This season, the game’s taking its inspiration from Greek mythology with a new time-limited mode, Battle For Olympus, giving the heroes some godlike powers early next year. You can take a look at some of what’s lined up for Overwatch 2 Season 2 in the trailer below.
]]>Like many free-to-play live service games these days, Overwatch 2 loves its skins. Occasionally though, Blizzard stumble with their cosmetic offerings, rather like they’ve tripped over an invisible dog. Players have been taking to Twitter and Reddit to voice their irritation with support hero Moira’s rather uninspired new legendary skin, based on the classic black and white look of mime artists everywhere. Just like mime artists themselves, it’s not very popular.
]]>The mid-cycle patch for hero shooter Overwatch 2 has arrived to bring balance adjustments for multiple characters, and free Mei from her downtime at last. In particular, Zarya’s particle barrier duration has been reduced, so you should have an easier team taking her on in future. Blizzard announced there’d be a delay to the balance adjustment update earlier this week, which had been scheduled for November 15th.
]]>Blizzard have postponed the release of a patch for Overwatch 2 so they can fix an undisclosed “critical issue” with the game. The patch had been scheduled for November 15th, and is meant to include hero balance adjustments for Zarya, Genji, Sombra, Kiriko, and D.va. The mid-season update should also see Mei return to the hero shooter after her two-week stint on the bench, Blizzard’s statement said, following issues with her icewall ability last month. You can now expect the patch to arrive tomorrow, November 17th, at 7pm GMT / 9pm CET / 11am PST. Not too long to wait, then.
]]>Overwatch 2's commercial lead Jon Spector has revealed the free-to-play hero shooter's next new character will bolster the ranks of its support heroes. Spector dropped the hint about Overwatch 2’s next hero in a Q&A session with Korean site Inven. Spector said that the next hero would be a “more solid support”. We can expect them to arrive in Overwatch 2 when Season 3 of the game begins in early February 2023.
]]>The EU’s business competition regulators are deepening their investigation into Microsoft’s planned $68.7 billion (£60 billion) deal to acquire Call Of Duty and Overwatch publisher Activision Blizzard. The intention to conduct an in-depth investigation was announced in a statement on the European Commission’s website, and will focus on how the deal will affect console and PC games, along with PC operating systems. This means that both the EU and UK are now holding further investigations into the potential buyout of Activision Blizzard due to concerns that Microsoft’s acquisition of the company could reduce competition within the games industry.
]]>There’s not long to wait until we find out who the next hero coming to Overwatch 2 will be, as Blizzard have revealed they’ll be announcing the character during the Overwatch League Grand Finals. They’re due to air tonight, November 4th, in the US, and in the early hours of tomorrow morning for people on the other side of the Atlantic. That leaves enough time to place your bets on who it’ll turn out to be.
]]>Frosty damage hero Mei has been removed from play in Overwatch 2 for the next fortnight while Blizzard address bugs affecting her ice wall ability. Unlike when Bastion was disabled because of his glitching ultimate, however, Mei does at least have a return date pencilled in. Blizzard are aiming to get her back in Overwatch 2 for November 15th, when the game’s next scheduled patch drops. That still might slip, though. What? I had to get an ice crack in.
]]>Overwatch 2’s arctic scientist Mei has had a notable bug in her toolkit since launch, but the problem is becoming more persistent for some players. All of Mei’s abilities revolve around ice, whether slowing down enemies with a snowy spray or incubating in a cocoon of ice. However, a compilation on Reddit showcases various problems with her Ice Wall ability, which seems to be in need of some serious TLC.
]]>Today marks the start of Overwatch 2’s first double XP weekend, one of three lined up for the hero shooter before the end of season one. You’ll be able to net your heroes twice the match XP until October 24th, starting at 7pm BST/8pm CEST/11am PDT today and ending the same time on Monday, but the bonus doesn’t apply to daily and weekly challenges. Blizzard have also revealed that Overwatch 2’s first seasonal event, Halloween Terror, begins on October 25th.
]]>Robot damage hero Bastion has been unplayable in Overwatch 2 for the past week due to some unfortunate shenanigans with his artillery ultimate. It was only meant to be temporary, Blizzard said. Yet this increasingly lengthy absence from the game's resulted in some players treating the poor droid as though he'd passed away rather than becoming glitched out for a little while.
]]>On this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang, we deliver our impressions of Overwatch 2 and discuss whether Overwatch really needed a number "2" slapped on the end of it.
]]>Overwatch 2 won’t be seeing any significant rebalances to its roster of heroes until the free to play shooter enters its second season in early December, Blizzard have confirmed. The game’s developers shared a blog post updating players on how the company are monitoring gameplay, maps, and competitive rankings in the immediate post-launch period. There will, however, be a targeted adjustment to tank Zarya in the next major patch going live on October 25th, Blizzard said.
]]>A DDoS attack on Blizzard caused issues for Overwatch 2 players earlier today, following on from similar attacks on the company during the free to play shooter’s launch last week. The latest attack came just after Overwatch 2 had finished a period of emergency maintenance. Although Blizzard have confirmed the DDoS attack has now ended, the recurring attacks aren’t exactly a good sign for a game already beset by technical issues.
]]>Blizzard have said they’ve disabled the phone number account requirement for most Overwatch 2 players, following issues with registration for some. The company originally insisted on all players providing a phone number as part of the hero shooter’s new anti-cheat system, dubbed Defense Matrix. The planned change should go into effect from October 7th.
]]>Tomorrow, October 2nd, is the last full day during which the Overwatch 1 severs will be online. Blizzard's first-person shooter will switch off at 8am PT on the 3rd (4pm BST) ahead of the release of the free-to-play Overwatch 2 on October 4th.
How do we feel about that?
]]>Shoehorning in appearances by pop-culture favourites du jour isn’t something you’d normally associate with Overwatch, but Blizzard are considering it in some form or another for Overwatch 2. Overwatch VP Jon Spector discussed brand crossovers during an interview with Game Informer, saying that Blizzard is “interested in exploring” partnerships like those you might see in Fortnite. Although, he did qualify that it would have to be in keeping with the Overwatch franchise.
]]>Free to play hero shooter sequel Overwatch 2 finally arrives on PC on October 4th, and today Blizzard have officially unveiled new hero Kiriko along with details of season one. They’ve also detailed how the game’s free and premium battle passes will work, and what you can expect in each. Watch the trailer below for some new Overwatch and pretend like it’s 2016 again. Just more grindy.
]]>Further investigation of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard is needed by the UK’s competition regulator, a statement on the government’s website confirmed today. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) began the preliminary stage of their investigation at the beginning of July, with a deadline set for September 1st. That initial stage of investigation found that the deal could “substantially lessen competition in gaming consoles, multi-game subscription services, and cloud gaming services”.
]]>Liam and I thought Overwatch 2's first PVP beta was fine! It was just hard to say just how much of that came down to the "2" in its title. We jumped back into its ongoing second beta, in the hopes that we'd finally wrap our heads around the game. Maybe we'd got it all wrong the first time around? It's the sequel to the biggest hero shooter out there! This time, this time we'd feel the "2" part come alive beneath our fingertips as we insta-locked Torbjorn on attack.
Dear reader, Liam and I emerged from our Overwatch 2 session having had a marvellous chat. We caught up on life, talked about Monster Hunter Rise, and how nice it is that the RPS Treehouse is complete again. Everything except Overwatch 2 itself was discussed... Which says it all, really.
]]>Overwatch 2 sees the start of its second closed beta test today, which runs until July 18th. You’ll need to wait for 7pm BST/11am PST to arrive before you can jump into the beta though. It’s also the first proper opportunity to play as the new tank Junker Queen, revealed at the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase earlier this month.
]]>Blizzard have revealed that Overwatch 2’s next closed PvP beta starts on June 28th, and it’s set to introduce new tank character Junker Queen. Also coming in the beta is a new map. Blizzard’s announcement tweet promised more information about what’s to come when sign-ups begin tomorrow, June 16th.
]]>Earlier this week, Activision Blizzard published a post on their website about their "Diversity Space Tool". Developed by subsidiary King, it's a tool for rating video game characters along certain axes in order to rate their relative diversity. Several people then pointed out that sounded mildly dystopian.
Yesterday, Activison Blizzard responded, saying that the "prototype is not being used in active game development", and was designed as an optional supplement to other work.
]]>Liam and I have given Overwatch 2's PVP beta a whirl and it's been... interesting. Both of us have come away with mixed feelings, especially around that big "2". Does it really seem like a sequel? To answer that question, we've teamed up in this article like a Müller and its corner to mingle our thoughts in word form. Of course, if you'd rather hear us grumble at each other in glorious video form, you can watch that down below.
]]>Shareholders in Activision Blizzard approved overwhelmingly to accept Microsoft Corporation’s offer of $68.7 billion (£54.66 billion) to acquire the company at yesterday’s Special Meeting of Stockholders. More than 98% of the shares voted in favour of the buyout offer, Activision Blizzard confirmed in a statement released on their website. The largest payment for a technology company in recorded history, toppling Dell’s acquisition of EMC Data Storage from 2016, it’s now expected the deal will conclude during Microsoft’s fiscal year, which ends on June 30th 2023.
]]>You can finally play Blizzard Entertainment’s hero shooter follow-up Overwatch 2 from today, two and half years since it was announced. Well, you can if you signed up to the first closed PvP beta and satisfy Blizzard’s conditions enough to receive an invite, that is. Blizzard confirmed in a tweet that emails with instructions on how to access the game will start firing out from 11am PDT/7pm BST to those who opted in to the beta at the Overwatch site. You can still sign up as of now, too.
]]>Overwatch 2 may have been delayed, but it’s finally, almost, here in a playable form! It’ll be available from April 26th in a closed beta, and Blizzard are still taking sign-ups over on their site right now. According to an earlier post on the Blizzard website, this’ll be the first of many betas, with players getting access to the game in phases. Earlier this month it was announced that Overwatch 2 was splitting up the PVP and PVE sections of the game, and this beta only includes the PVP half.
]]>In the wake of scandal and lawsuits alleging a culture of discrimination and harrassment at Activision Blizzard, Microsoft today announced they're buying the company. Wait, hang on. What. That's not what I expected when Xbox head Phil Spencer told staff he was "evaluating all aspects of [Xbox's] relationship" with Activision Blizzard. Microsoft plan to pay $68.7 billion (£50 billion) for the company, which will nab them games including Warcraft, Call Of Duty, and Overwatch. Jesus.
]]>This week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang is both festive, but tinged with sadness. It's Imogen's final run of the pod and I'm very sad about it. But we (I) gather ourselves and chat FPS news, like how PUBG is going free to play, Overwatch actually has something new, and lots of Halo Infinite stuff. We also get one final update on Imogen's Apex Legends rank. I'd love to say it's positive, but it's actually quite crushing. Merry Christmas.
]]>Last year, Overwatch introduced an experimental mode that Blizzard have mostly used to test potential balance changes, and show players what the devs have been messing around with internally. They tend to be fairly minor tweaks, and there hasn't been an experimental update in a little while. But last night we finally got a new one, and from what I've played it's full of daft and fun tweaks. Prepare yourselves for flying Roadhogs and Genjis, nanoboosted Anas, and a handful of wonderfully-timed voicelines.
]]>I arrive at this episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang thoroughly shootered. Both big FPS releases of the month, Call Of Duty: Vanguard and Battlefield 2042, have been at my fingertips this week and I've got some thoughts. Of course, Imogen hits us with news too. Valorant has another new character coming out, Fortnite pulls Travis Scott, and Imogen gives us the lowdown on just how much she's enjoying Apex Legends' latest season.
]]>This time, I've returned from a trip to Devon having spent too much time ignoring my friends and playing Hollow Knight instead. But what about FPSes? Well, I didn't play any of those. Thankfully Imogen has all of us covered on this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang, with a news segment rammed with lots of exciting announcements. Namely, Apex Legends gets a new Legend and map, Halo Infinite sees a new trailer, and Call Of Duty's new anti-cheat Ricochet leaks early.
]]>Blizzard have announced that Overwatch's McCree will be known as Cole Cassidy going forward. They're renaming the cowboy to distance him from his real-life namesake, former Blizzard employee Jesse McCree. He left the developer due to unknown reasons in August, but his departure came after the State of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, alleging the company fostered a "frat boy" culture of sexual harassment and discrimination. The name change will take effect in-game tomorrow.
]]>I've returned from my trip to the Lake District, with aching calves and a desire to talk about online shooters with Imogen. On this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang, we don't chat sore muscles, instead, we focus on various Halloween events in games like Apex Legends and Rainbow Six: Siege, our thoughts on the Battlefield 2042 beta, Destiny 2 vaulting yet more stuff, and Call Of Duty: Vanguard finally introducing anti-cheat.
]]>This week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang is marked by competition. Imogen and I quiz each other on all things shooter trivia, and someone knows more than the other. Anyway, before that, there's plenty of news to catch up on. Call Of Duty: Vanguard has fixed a weird dognado glitch, time-loopy shooter Lemnis Gate is out, Halo: Infinite tech preview number two arrives very soon, and Overwatch 2 announces some reworks. Spoiler alert: Bastion now has a hat.
]]>Rejoice! The absolute pain in the arse that is Bastion is getting a rework for Overwatch 2, and he'll no longer be able to heal himself or turn into a murderous tank. He will be a lot more mobile and have a sticky grenade however, so watch out for that. Over the weekend, Blizzard revealed the changes coming to both Bastion and Sombra in the sequel. While Sombra's tweaks are a little more minimal, it looks like Bastion's will make him play a whole lot differently. Importantly, he'll also wear one of Torbjorn's caps. Fashion.
]]>Predictably, Imogen and I begin this week's episode of Ultimate Audio Bang by getting excited about Deathloop before realising that there's plenty of other newsy bits to cover. Listen to get our hot thoughts on the Call Of Duty: Vanguard reveal, Battlefield 2042's delay, the Overwatch League using an early build of Overwatch 2 in 2022, and plenty more shootery things.
]]>Hero shooter sequel Overwatch 2 doesn't have a release date yet. Some folks will be getting their hands on it next spring though, so perhaps it isn't all that far off. Blizzard plan to start the next season of competitive play for the Overwatch League in April of next year, they've confirmed. They've also mentioned that the season will be played using an "early build" of Overwatch 2.
]]>On this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang podcast Imogen and I chat EA sharing Apex Legends' ping system with other companies, Call Of Duty: Vanguard things, and the fact Destiny 2 is adding a big lady. I for one am a fan of this big lady, as her getup reminds me of a candelabra, which is nice.
]]>Overwatch character McCree is going to be renamed, the game's development team have announced. The change comes after the character's namesake, Blizzard developer Jesse McCree, left the studio amidst a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard by the State Of California which alleges workplace sexual harassment and discrimination at the developer.
]]>On this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang, the video game drought continues, but Imogen managed to pluck some news from the parched earth with her special news detector. The first find - Warzone's huge mid-season update. It promises trucks, which is always a good thing in my books. There's also some chat over Apex Legends new Arena map which is messy, chaotic, goodness.
]]>Now that we're over the E3 hump, Imogen and I thought we'd catch a break on this week's episode of the Ultimate Audio Bang. But no, the online shooters simply do not stop reloading. PUBG dropped a new map on its test servers, Warzone fixed its murder door, and Valorant's new agent sounds very overpowered.
]]>Assemble your friends across PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, because you can all group up and play together in Overwatch now. Last night, Blizzard added cross-platform multiplayer to the hero shooter, so PC players will now be able to jump in with their console pals to muck about in Quick Play and Arcade game modes. On top of that, there's a new challenge that lets players earn a stylish biker skin for Ashe.
]]>Just last month, Blizzard mentioned they'd be rolling out some major new feature for Overwatch in the near future. They've just announced that their big hero shooter is getting cross-platform multiplayer between all of its platforms. There are caveats about competitive play and input types and attempting to keep the playing field level, of course. The bottom line though is that you'll be able to group up with your console pals sometime soon.
]]>Overwatch 2 might be the more exciting name in recent headlines, but it seems Blizzard still have at least one big plan for their original hero shooter. Earlier this week, Overwatch developers answered questions about the series during a Q&A on Reddit. While there were plenty of lore queries I could go on about for hours, some more interesting titbits came out too. Game director Aaron Keller said a "large feature" for the first Overwatch would be announced "somewhere in the timeframe between soon and really soon".
]]>Warzone Audio Bang has been put to rest... but Ultimate Audio Bang is here to pick up the slack. In this first episode of Ultimate Audio Bang, we try to continue Warzone Audio Bang's legacy. I am channeling James' energy as the pod's new host, and I'm joined by the wonderful Imogen who has good chat and knows a lot about shooters.
And that's what this podcast is all about: online shooters. We're still touching on Warzone, of course, but we're also going to be chatting about different games that involve pulling triggers and pinging targets. You could say it's a natural evolution of Warzone Audio Bang, hence the "Ultimate" bit in the name. Makes sense, doesn't it?
]]>Blizzard have still yet to tell us when Overwatch 2 is coming out, but last night they at least shared a load of what they've been working on for the game's PvP multiplayer. We got a fresh look at the hectic new mode Push, and saw a few matches on new maps like New York and Toronto. Perhaps the most surprising bit of info the devs revealed, however, is that teams in Overwatch 2 will have five players, rather than six, dropping a tank from each side. As a tank main, I have thoughts.
]]>Blizzard will be putting a bandage over Jeff Kaplan’s departure from Overwatch by showing off a heck of a lot of Overwatch 2 next week. In the first post-Jeff Overwatch talking head, new game director Aaron Keller made a brief announcement detailing the May 20th stream, which will focus on PvP.
]]>Overwatch game direct Jeff Kaplan has left Blizzard after twenty years with the company. The news was announced in a blog post, which also names his successor as Aaron Keller.
]]>Chinese police have reportedly shut down a cheat seller in collaboration with publishers Tencent, arresting 10 people and seizing sports cars in the process. The operation, named Chicken Drumstick, sold subscriptions to cheats for games including Overwatch and Call Of Duty Mobile. The police claim this was the "world's biggest" cheat operation, though that's a tough one to quantify or verify. But hey, another cheatmonger shut down, that's good.
]]>Like all of last year's physical gaming events, BlizzCon didn't actually happen as usual in November. Blizzard chose to move the convention to an online format and bumped BlizzCon 2020 to BlizzConline this month. Would you look at that? It's nearly upon us, so Blizzard have pushed out a trailer and some starter details on what to expect on February 19th and 20th.
]]>Today, Blizzard add a brand new deathmatch map to Overwatch. It's a pleasant surprise considering I thought they'd be neck-deep in Overwatch 2 development by now. Turns out the surprise is even nicer however, because the new map comes with a cat café (!) as well as a challenge to unlock a new Hanzo skin, and it launches later today.
]]>Pack your bags, wrap the presents, put your scarf around your neck. And then sit down because, I'm sorry, you're going nowhere. It's bad, yeah. Even yours truly, a respected list goblin of note, could not make it back to his family in time for the holidays due to the ongoing vengeance of mother nature. But listen. What if I told you: "video games"? They have always had something for us in the past. What wonderful surrogate families can we join in this time of loneliness and separation to ease our troubled minds? Here are the 10 most wholesome families in PC games you may look to in this hour of need.
]]>If you've ever been messing around with Overwatch's emotes and thought, "hey, this one would look great on a different character", then boy do I have a fun bug to show you. Players have discovered an emote-swapping glitch which allows you to play almost any looping emote on almost any character. Sometimes they're pretty funny, but I found that one Bastion emote in particular creates some absolute nightmare fuel.
]]>Not much to do over Crimble? Hey, maybe you might fancy bursting some faces with colourful violence in Overwatch. Blizzard's multiplayer FPS is holding a two-week free trial over the hols, and is on sale right now if you like it enough to want it for keepsies. Or if you just want something new to play for a bit, that's cool. The game is running its Christmas event right now too.
]]>What a pleasant Christmas surprise! Here I thought that most development would've shifted onto Overwatch 2 by now, but it seems Blizzard aren't finished with their original hero shooter just yet. Overwatch is adding a pretty new deathmatch map set in Japan, called Kanezaka, and it's coming to the Player Test Realm (PTR) this month.
Kanezaka is a lovely-looking Japanese village placed just below Hanamura (the assault map that also features in one of the game's animated shorts), and there's a cat café!
]]>As much a part of the season as indoor trees and mysterious boxes, Overwatch's annual Winter Wonderland has rolled back in for another year. 2020's edition of Christmas in Blizzardland introduces new 4v4 freeze-tag brawl "Freezethaw Elimination", brings back limited modes from the ghosts of Overwatch past, and once again adds a bundle of wonderfully strange festive outfits for our far-future superfriends.
]]>I cried when I first saw Sombra at the 2016 BlizzCon opening keynote. I remembered feeling uncomfortable as a child when I saw Tetra transform into Princess Zelda in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker; I saw how the change was framed as an upgrade from an unremarkable brown pirate to an ethereal pale princess worth Herculean and Hyrulian efforts alike to save. Any pride I could’ve had in a heroine whose skin resembled mine was taken from me. I could find comfort in neither my skin colour nor my ethnicity as a brown Latina, for there were no Latina characters I knew of.
But in 2016, here was Sombra, a brown woman highlighted on stage at one of the biggest conventions in the industry. After over a decade, I could finally play as someone who looked like me and wasn’t an amalgamation of stereotypes.
]]>Overwatch doesn't really have an in-game narrative. Instead, Blizzard have been telling stories about the hero shooter's characters over the years via animations, comics and short stories. If you've followed much of this stuff, you'll know that heroes Symmetra and Zenyatta have been pretty lacking on the lore front. But no longer! Because a new short story has arrived telling us a bit more about what they were up to before joining the Overwatch crew.
In a developer update, Jeff Kaplan talks about the in-game event linked to the story, as well as some changes coming to the game's role queue system, too.
]]>In a new virtual 'fireside chat', Blizzard head honcho J. Allen Brack has given an update on the success of their anti-toxicity systems. They've been using machine learning to help combat abusive chat and bad behaviour in Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm for a while, and recently brought the system to World Of Warcraft's public channels. It sounds like a success there too. Brack also announced that the next BlizzCon, which is online-only, will be free for everyone to watch.
]]>Earlier this year, when the pandemic made us shut ourselves away in our homes, there was a hope (and, well, wishful thinking) that it would all wash over in a few months. Evidently that was too optimistic, and is very much not the case. It sucks for many reasons, but one that's been on my mind over the last few days is that I won't get to celebrate Halloween in-person with my pals.
But it's kind of okay, because games like Overwatch with their silly Halloween events almost provide a sense of normality amongst it all.
]]>Despite 2020 having lasted millennia, we now somehow find ourselves in the midst of October. Frightening as the passage of time may be, Overwatch is about to take another stab at scaring the bejeezus out of us with its annual Halloween Terror event - bringing in spooky new skins, emotes, and a limited-time fight to the death against a cackling Australian's army of undead robots.
]]>Super-powered heroes? Nefarious evil organisations? Dubious allegories to real-world oppression? Overwatch is already basically a comic book series, so why not lean all the way into that? This month, Blizzard are doing just that. Tracer's Comic Challenge is a graphic two-week event for picking up some themed cosmetics, running alongside the release of a new webcomic starring everyone's favourite spatially-unbound Londoner.
]]>Ah, the Overwatch Workshop. It's an excellent tool for creating all sorts of wacky modded game modes in Blizzard's colourful hero shooter, and players have produced some real gems with it since it was added. From Weeping Angels to a self-playing piano you can import songs to, there are endless possibilities. But for all of the weird and wonderful things players have made, sometimes it's the simple concepts that can be the most fun. For example, have you ever wondered what it would be like if Bastion was an attack helicopter?
]]>Blizzard have confirmed that they’ll be hosting BlizzCon as an online event due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The annual celebration of their games and communities was cancelled this year, with a suggestion that they’ll be holding it virtually in 2021. During a recent earnings call, Blizzard’s president J. Allen Brack confirmed that it will be happening “early 2021”.
]]>It's summer! Scotland might've missed the memo (my soaked jeans can attest to that), but at least Overwatch is willing and able to have some fun in the virtual sun. The Summer Games have returned to Blizzard's hero shooter, bringing in a fresh collection of hot beach looks - whether you're chilling by the pool or pushing that dang payload.
]]>Cosplayer Zibartas is someone who will never run out of light. His latest creation is Mercy’s wings from Overwatch. They’re built out of steel and aluminium, glow with the perfect amount of heavenly light, and unfurl like he’s just activated an ultimate. There are very few moments of true beauty in the world at the moment, but I'd argue that seeing these snake out like a visit from an angel is one of them. I'd hug him if it weren't physically impossible.
]]>Imagine you're having a scuffle in Blizzard's funky little FPS, Overwatch. Most of the enemy team is here, except one of their tanks is definitely missing. That's when you see it - a drop pod hurtling down from the sky. It crushes your teammates upon landing, before the gentle giant mech Orisa emerges from it. According to the Overwatch devs in a recent Q&A, this is what Orisa's ultimate could've looked like in early development.
]]>Oh, to ditch Overwatch's crude gunfights for a night at the opera. To push culture, not payloads. Capture hearts and souls, not control points. Ah, well, the latest challenge event for Blizzard's hero shooter might not be picking up a fiddle anything soon, but it will let you pretend you're the sort of person who frequents the concert hall with Sigma's Maestro Challenge - dressing up Overwatch's gravity-defying egghead for orchestral bombast
]]>Blizzard have released an Overwatch album, so now you can bop along to your favourite in-game tunes even when you're not playing. Overwatch: Cities And Countries is a collection of soundtracks from the game, all based on the global locations of its maps. You know when you first load into a match, and it plays that short riff of music symbolic of the setting? These are basically just the full versions of those, and they're actually really good.
]]>[Warning: this article must be read entirely in a comedy cowboy voice]
Howdy pardner. Spittoon? Take it, we got a whole crate of them right here. Every god-fearing outlaw needs a good spittoon at their heels, as my grandmammy used to say. Hoo-wee, what a women. She was known to enjoy a strong snifter of list article, you know. Everyone who visited got a spittoon and a list article. And vidyagames be damned if I ain’t the same obliging sort as my grammy, yes sir. So here you go, friend. In anticipation of that there Desperados III, here are the 9 most desperate cowboys, cowgals, and cowbots in PC gaming. Yeehaw, I say, yee and haw.
]]>Overwatch has just finished its most recent Anniversary event, marking four years since the game launched. It's been a good four years and, to celebrate, some of the developers have written a cute little post detailing some of their favourite moments working on Overwatch. Now, you may be interested in the stories about early character design, or perhaps the one about the whole dev team singing the Pokémon theme tune at a karaoke night. But I personally cannot get this image of a stick figure Tracer out of my head.
]]>This year was supposed to be the Overwatch League’s big leap into local homesteads, and while no one was quite clear how well it would work, they certainly weren’t expecting a global pandemic to move the whole thing back online again. It hasn’t all been smooth sailing, but they’ve mostly managed to pull it off.
In certain spots, the challenge has actually pushed some fun and creative solutions, like using pets to establish hero pools for the following weeks, or, in freelance esports photographer Robert Paul’s case, switching from real life shots to in-game ones.
]]>Blizzard are changing up Overwatch's hero pool system again, except this time around they're just straight up removing it from regular competitive play. The system, which involves banning several characters each week, was originally implemented to stop the meta from turning stale, and it's seen a few changes already in its short life. Just last month I reported that they'd ditched hero pools for lower rank players, and now they've gone as far as to get rid of them for everyone. Except the Overwatch League, that is, which, let's be honest, is pretty much the only reason hero pools were invented in the first place.
]]>The game event cancellations are pushing even deeper into the year now, as Blizzard have announced BlizzCon 2020 is a no-go. The event usually takes right at the beginning of November, but due to ongoing concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic they've made the decision to cancel it.
"We've talked about different paths we could take, and how each one could be complicated by fluctuations in national and local health guidelines in the months ahead," they said. "Ultimately, after considering our options, we've come to the very difficult decision to not have BlizzCon this year."
]]>There are so many games celebrating birthdays this week! The Witcher 3 turned five, Red Dead Redemption turned 10, and now Overwatch is celebrating its fourth year. For Overwatch it means its Anniversary event has kicked off once more, and from now until June 19th you'll be able to replay all the old seasonal Brawls and grab a whole host of new cosmetic items. And I have to say, this year's skins are particularly good.
]]>For as much as Blizzard players love loot, it took them a hot minute to find this hidden Overwatch easter egg. But after idly punching breakable barrels during a round on Blizzard World, one Overwatch player discovered a legendary drop of their own - a years-old Diablo reference that may have lay undiscovered by the community since the map debuted in 2018.
]]>Jeff "from the Overwatch team" Kaplan has yet another home video for us. These lockdown developer updates have been great - here he is, just a man in his living room giving us the lowdown on some upcoming changes to Overwatch. This time round, he has details on changes to the Competitive Open Queue game mode, as well as some info on the new hero balancing you'll find in the current Experimental Card. It's mostly some sensible nerfs and buffs to a few supports to shake-up the meta. But then, Kaplan said this:
"I know many of you are just dying to see more Bastion in your matches."
]]>Looks like there's trouble in paradise at the Overwatch League, as the Vancouver Titans have released their entire team roster right in the middle of the 2020 season. In a letter to fans they explain the decision stemmed from issues with the League's online matches, after homestands were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This unfortunately put the team in a weird position, being based out of Vancouver but having a roster made up entirely of South Korean players.
]]>Looks like Blizzard are starting to realise that most Overwatch players aren't all in the Top 500, as they've removed hero pools for lower competitive ranks. Players from Bronze up to Diamond will no longer have to deal with the weekly hero bans because, let's face it, those of us at these levels never use the same compositions as the Overwatch League, do we?
"Competitive play at lower skill tiers already sees a tremendous amount of hero composition diversity in their matches, and we don’t think they need a system like hero pools to encourage even more," the devs say.
]]>It's not even out of beta yet and Valorant is tempting pros from other games into its ranks. San Francisco Shock's star player, Jay "Sinatraa" Won, is the first Overwatch League player to be making the switch, joining up with the Sentinels' new competitive Valorant team. Sinatraa announced his retirement from Overwatch yesterday, saying he "straight up just lost passion for the game".
"Idk what the real killer was for me but maybe it was 2-2-2 lock, maybe it was bans I'm not sure... I just know it was hard for me to log on to play and I didn't have fun in scrims/ranked at all anymore."
]]>You know what you did. Your team knows what you did. That Reinhardt play was awful, but how are you supposed to express remorse? Open the chat box? Plug in a headset? Nonsense. Until now, Overwatch had absolutely no way of letting your team know you messed up. Today's PTR update changes everything, letting you customise your chat wheel with new voice commands to drive plays, count down ultimates, say goodbye, and yes - even apologise for that terrible, ill-planned charge.
]]>The damage-dealing hero Echo has arrived in Overwatch. Like a Mercy who has ripped up her Hippocratic Oath, she glides around the map blasting away with her robot gunhands. Or maybe she’s more like a Pharah that’s way more manoeuvrable? Oh no, she just turned into a Roadhog. What have you done, Blizzard?
]]>April Fools is not a day to scare or mislead people with mean tricks. April Fools is for lighthearted pranks, and silly jokes. April Fools is a day to stick googly eyes on all of your video game characters. If you load up Overwatch today, you might notice that Blizzard have done exactly that - it's not just the heroes that have received the googly eye treatment either, even Hanzo's dragons and the test dummies are joining in on the fun.
]]>The Overwatch League casters, hosts and players alike are all holed up at home for the time being, with matches taking place online while the world waits for the Covid-19 pandemic to run its course. It seems like cabin fever is starting to set in though, as this week they've adopted a cat into the analyst's panel to decide on the hero pools.
It went about as well as you can imagine.
]]>A whole year-and-a-bit after she was first teased in Ashe's reveal trailer, flying holo-faced robot Echo is finally playable in Overwatch. Well, the test realm, at least. An Echo in more than name, Blizzard's latest brawler is a flying robot thief who can nab any other hero's abilities with her unprecedented ultimate.
]]>Alright alright, you can stop speculating now because Blizzard have finally confirmed that the long-teased Echo will be Overwatch's next hero. Or, perhaps continue speculating because they've told us next to zilch about her. Although we've seen her pop up in previous animated shorts, today's very brief teaser does not much more than confirm that she's en-route to the game.
]]>Despite having to cancel its homestands due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Overwatch League isn't giving up on the 2020 season just yet. Instead of taking their show on the road, Blizzard have set up a brand new schedule to host League matches online. There are obviously some complications with holding competitive events like this online when the teams are so spread across the globe however, so things are going to be a little bit different for games in the coming weeks.
]]>Here we go again. Blizzard are teasing us with the tiniest pieces of Overwatch lore and I can't get enough of it. Yesterday, the Overwatch Twitter account tweeted out a personal log from a Dr. Mina Liao, who's been building an Omnic codenamed "the Athena prototype". Now, I don't know about you, but this all sounds like we're about to get our first proper look at Echo, the Omnic hero Blizzard have been teasing for over a year.
"The Athena prototype has been deemed a success," the tweet reads.
]]>Over the past month, at greater and greater pace, games events and happenings have been disrupted by precautionary measures against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. E3 is off, GDC is postponed... this year's PC gaming calendar is looking quite different. We've posted about some of these as they cropped up but it's hard to follow in drips and drabs. So! Here's a long list of effects on games events, game development, esports, and more in response to Covid-19 concerns.
]]>Once more, it's time for the fine folks at Overwatch to put down their guns, stop shooting each other for a moment, pick up their guns again and go blast some robots and armoured goons. It's Archives time, team. With no new story to plug through this time, all three of Overwatch's co-op stories are coming back with wild new variations, alongside the requisite bucket of new skins and cosmetics to unlock after all that carnage. Archives 2020 runs 'til April 2nd, at which point everyone can go back to shooting their best mates.
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