2018 is upon us, and for stay video games like Overwatch the brand new 12 months means a terrific alternative to sit up for the methods the sport will change and develop within the months forward. The newest Overwatch developer replace does precisely that, with Jeff ‘From the Overwatch Team’ Kaplan laying out what to anticipate from the sport in 2018.
Check out extra on Overwatch’s 2018 in our interview with Jeff Kaplan.
In the rapid future, you may count on Overwatch League. The common season begins subsequent week on January 10, and in-game which means you’ll even have a bunch of crew colors to buy. Blizzard World may even “very soon” hit the stay sport after its keep on the PTR.
There’s additionally stuff within the works that we haven’t seen earlier than. Hero 27 is already at the moment in inner testing, although Kaplan warns impatient gamers that the discharge date is much less necessary to the crew than getting the hero proper. He additionally says the mysterious newcomer is “very needed” within the sport. Of course, the crew’s additionally engaged on new maps, and heroes past quantity 27.
More basically, the crew’s trying to continually enhance the state of aggressive play. Kaplan factors to examples just like the removing of performance-based SR bonuses for extremely ranked gamers as short-term enhancements to the sport, however they’re continually a long-term objective of “what do we want competitive play to be like ultimately?”
Lore fiends will probably be happy to know that they’ll additionally proceed to concentrate on story growth, particularly on the Recall occasion depicted within the animated shorts for Winston, Mei, and Reinhardt. This will proceed to be explored by means of additional shorts and comics. Back at BlizzCon, lead author Michael Chu informed us the crew was trying to implement some form of codex to the game itself.
The Lunar New Year occasion will return, appropriately themed across the Year of the Dog. Kaplan says this replace will convey “significant content,” with adjustments from 2017’s Year of the Rooster based mostly on participant suggestions. Uprising may even return, bringing again the outdated stuff for gamers who didn’t see it, however the crew has “big ideas” for the right way to evolve this new iteration. The Anniversary occasion may even return, and Kaplan particularly says which means a second probability on the dance emotes.
Naturally, extra occasions imply extra legendary skins, however not all the brand new content material goes to be locked inside time-limited loot containers. Kaplan says a “ton of new content” will hit the bottom loot containers “very soon, hopefully sometime this month.”
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