Blizzard has launched the Year of the Rooster event for Overwatch, in celebration of the upcoming Chinese New Year.
Before the event arrived, however, several leaks revealed details regarding the event, including event-specific skins such as those based on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West and a new Capture the Flag mode.
Bringing Capture The Flag To Overwatch
The event-specific brawl, aptly named Capture the Rooster, is a version of the popular Capture the Flag game that is often seen in first-person shooters. The inclusion of the new mode into the Year of the Rooster event came as a surprise to Overwatch players, as the game's developers have repeated remarks that Capture the Flag will not play out as intended in the massively popular multiplayer shooter.
In the latest video in the Developer Update series, Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan revealed that the development team actually gave up on bringing Capture the Flag to the shooter after testing various versions of the mode. This was because the development team did not want to add so many rules to the simple game of Capture the Flag to balance the capabilities of Overwatch's heroes, as that took away the spirit of the characters.
In Capture the Flag, two opposing teams each have a flag in their respective bases. Players are tasked to retrieve the flag of the opponents and bring it all the way back to their own base, while also protecting their own flag from being taken.
The main problem with bringing Capture the Flag to Overwatch was that skills of certain heroes have them an unfair advantage over others. The most notable offender in balancing the mode for the game was Tracer, as her Blink skill will allow her to skip through opponents and grab the flag. Tracer can then use her Recall skill to go back to a previous point with flag in hand, and then simply run and re-use her Blink skill to evade opponents chasing her.
"You either have it wind up being a match of all Tracers and Genjis, or you end up putting so many rules in that Tracer doesn't feel like Tracer anymore or there's no reason to play her in the map," Kaplan previously said to Polygon regarding the introduction of Capture the Flag to Overwatch.
Capture The Rooster Finally Arrives In Overwatch
In the end, the development team decided against constricting Capture the Rooster with a bevy of rules, instead embracing the special abilities of Overwatch heroes.
Capture the Rooster, however, contains a few minor tweaks to ensure that the mode will not be an all-Tracer-and-Genji affair. There will be a timer before players on the location of the opposing flag are able to capture it, and any damage received by the player will reset the timer. In addition, players will be able to capture enemy flags even if their own has been taken, which is not allowed in other iterations of the game.
Is Capture The Flag Here To Stay In Overwatch?
Capture the Rooster is currently part of Overwatch's Arcade mode, and will not be added to the Quick Play and Competitive rotations. The mode will only be available until Feb. 13, which is when the Year of the Rooster event ends.
Given the demand for the mode and the work that the development team put into getting Capture the Flag for Overwatch right, there is the possibility that the mode will be added to Overwatch's Arcade in the future after the Year of the Rooster event ends. Kaplan has said that they would consider it, but it would depend on the feedback that they get from players.
