This weekend, publisher Blizzard hosts its annual Blizzcon, a Comic-Con-like event that celebrates Blizzard’s current video games and the communities around them. The opening ceremony took place earlier today and featured updates and announcements regarding Starcraft II, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch. While every game had some huge announcements, the Overwatch team showed just about every type of big announcement in its portion of the ceremony, featuring a new character, a new map, and a new animated short.
New Map – Blizzard World
First, Jeff Kaplan of the Overwatch team (who the community knows from the periodic Developer Updates) revealed a new map that is coming to Overwatch in early 2018: Blizzard World. Blizzard World is a hybrid map (capture the objective, then move the payload) that is designed around the idea of a Blizzard theme park. Different sections of the map are featuring different titles, so some areas will be inspired by Heroes of the Storm while others emulate Hearthstone, and so on.
Kaplan announced that the map will be going into the PTR servers soon for testing, but the full release of Blizzard World will not be until early 2018. Assumedly, the delayed release is because Overwatch will probably bring back the winter holiday event from last year.
New Animated Short – Reinhardt
While this doesn’t change anything about the landscape of Overwatch in terms of eSports, Kaplan did also show off a captivating animated short featuring Reinhardt. Focusing on a younger Reinhardt than featured in the game, it shows a battle during his prime where he and his team fight for “honor and glory.”
New Hero – Moira
Of course, the most exciting Overwatch announcement from Blizzcon is that there is a new hero coming: Moira. After the releases of Orisa and Doomfist earlier this year, fans were practically begging Blizzard to release another healer and they listened. Moira is a former member of the Blackwatch and Talon groups, being the only healer support hero to be associated with the “bad guys.”
Moira’s set of abilities immediately set her apart from the other healers. Here is a breakdown of all of her abilities:
Biotic Grasp
Presumably her main “weapon,” Biotic Grasp has each of Moira’s hand doing different things. Her left hand is a healing beam a la Mercy that can heal targets in front of her. Her right hand is a “long-range” beam that deals continuous damage to enemies.
Biotic Sphere
The biotic sphere seems to be a cooldown ability and it is very useful. Moira can choose between either a healing orb or a damage orb. The orb is projected in front of her and can rebound off of walls. The healing orb heals anyone within close range of it, while the other gradually damages any nearby enemies.
Fade
To put it briefly, Fade is right in between Tracer’s Blink and Reaper’s Teleport. Over the course of a second or two, Moira teleports a short distance to quickly get out of harm’s way. It has the same distance as Blink, but with a sped up teleport animation.
Coalescence
Lastly, Moira’s ultimate ability is a huge beam that weaves the yellow and purple abilities together. The beam is moveable and it can heal teammates while dealing damage to enemies at the same time. Everything is still a gradual effect, but it is assumed to be enhanced compared to her regular cooldown abilities.
Overwatch World Cup
On top of announcements, there is also a big Overwatch tournament taking place over a couple of days. Already in progress, there is a three stage tournament to determine the Overwatch World Cup qualifiers. The tournament includes the United Kingdom vs. Sweden, Canada vs. Australia, China vs. France, and South Korea vs. the United States, with the winners facing each other in subsequent rounds.
As of this writing, Canada vs. Australia is in progress, while Sweden has already picked up the shocking upset over the United Kingdom with the 3-0 sweep.
