Blizzard's Overwatch recently soared past 10 million players, and each of those players is probably thinking the same thing: when are new heroes and maps coming out?
While Overwatch received rave reviews thanks to its pitch-perfect gameplay and vibrant visuals, the fact remains that it's a multiplayer-only shooter. Having been out for a few weeks now, players have already played each map dozens upon dozens of times and are likely looking for something new.
New maps and heroes are on the way, as recently revealed in a forum post by Overwatch game director Jeff Kaplan. He says new maps and heroes are being worked on daily, though some are further along than others. On the subject of maps, Kaplan says one map is "officially" in the works after having passed through the playtest and prototyping phase. Other maps are in various states of design.
"We have a few other maps that are in prototype and playtest phases right now," he says. "Some of them will become real maps and some of them will be totally scrapped — so I can't really commit to you on those."
As for new heroes, Kaplan says there are some that are very far along and others that are just getting started.
"We also have some prototype heroes that may or may not ever see the light of day," he says. "We do a lot of prototyping ... I don't think we're at a point where I can really talk openly about the release schedule for the new heroes because I don't want to set expectations and then have something come up and suddenly we're backing out on a 'promise' we never really made ... if that makes sense."
The main priority for the development team at the moment is the completion of Overwatch's competitive mode. That mode is expected to arrive in June or July.
"We're playtesting it multiple times a day," he says. "We're also looking into/debating putting up a Public Test Realm for this feature so that we can test it in a larger environment before putting it live. Even when it goes live, I anticipate our first few seasons will require iteration on the feature."
Balance updates are also something of which fans can expect to see more. McCree and Widowmaker were the first heroes to be brought down a notch in a recent update for PC, and no doubt, there will be more changes in the future. The updates will be rolled into one larger update (possibly the competitive mode update) for the game's Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions.
All of Overwatch's future content will come at no additional costs to players who own the game.
