Blizzard's hero shooter Overwatch takes a number of pages from the Team Fortress 2 playbook: multiple classes with their own unique weapons and abilities, a colorful artstyle and of course, payload and capture point objective types.
It's not at all surprising, then, that the escort map Watchpoint: Gibraltar from Overwatch looks to work surprisingly well when recreated in Valve's Team Fortress 2. The Team Fortress 2 version of the map is currently in alpha and comes from Serbian modder Srpski Čekić.
Though it doesn't currently feature any art or textures, the map's basic geometry has been faithfully recreated in Team Fortress 2 and is fully playable thanks to how similar the game's payload game type is to that of Overwatch's escort game type. One team pushes the cart by standing near it, and the other team attempts to stop them by killing them. There's a few differences between the two, but the basic concept is the same.
The tricky part is map-balancing. Because Gibraltar was designed around the various abilities of Overwatch's heroes, it's probably not all that balanced when it comes to Team Fortress 2's gameplay and nine playable classes, even if some of the game's characters do have various traits and skills in common. One major gameplay difference between the two is the fact that weapons in Team Fortress 2 have limited ammunition, whereas Overwatch characters have unlimited ammo (though they must still reload). Both games do, however, sport health packs sprinkled across their various maps.
When it comes to characters, the only Team Fortress 2 character that has no real counterpart in Overwatch is the disguise-wearing and backstabbing Spy class. However, Blizzard has been teasing a mysterious new character for Overwatch called Sombra that certainly seems like she prefers to stay in the shadows. Might Overwatch be getting a spy class of its own soon?
Without more details on Sombra, it's impossible to say, but in the meantime, fans can check out Srpski Čekić's map. PC Gamer installed the Team Fortress 2 version of Watchpoint: Gibraltar and played a few rounds against bots to give players an idea of what the map looks like in action. Unfortunately, nobody appears to be playing the custom map on Team Fortress 2's live servers, but that could likely change in the near future. Given how similar the games' various gametypes and playstyle are, it's actually a little surprising there hasn't been more crossover between the two. Modders, get on it!
