In a post on the Overwatch website, Blizzard confirmed a multitude of new details about the upcoming Overwatch 2 beta. For example, the four incoming maps for Overwatch 2’s closed beta, Midtown in New York City, Circuit Royal in Monte Carlo, New Queen Street in Toronto, and Colosseo in Rome, will all reflect Blizzard’s new design philosophy and development inspiration. In addition to the new maps, Overwatch 2 will also introduce a new game mode, Push, which will favor aggressive players. As per the official description, the Push mode will start with players on “opposite sides of a mirrored map” before meeting in the middle in a “push of war.” The goal is to push a robot to the opposition’s side, making Push “inherently faster paced than other game modes like Control and Escort.” According to Game Director, Aaron Keller, Blizzard designed the two Push maps, New Queen Street and Colosseo, to make flanking “easier,” with minimal chokepoints and a lot of different locations to keep an eye on. Don’t worry, choke points are still in Overwatch 2 though. As per Art Director, Dion Rogers, Circuit Royal, another one of Overwatch 2’s new maps, will have uphill switchbacks that act like chokepoints. Specifically, these strategically placed locations will “encourage tension and instigate team fights,” whenever the opposing sides meet in Escort. It also appears that the game’s new Escort map will see the Payload travel in a vertical manner that wasn’t seen in the original Overwatch. On a similar note, both Circuit Royal and Midtown, a Hybrid map, which is a combination of Assault and Escort, will use the environment to visually direct players towards their goals. Judging from the initial looks, it’s clear that the Overwatch 2 team put in a lot of effort on the new maps. However, as explained in the latest blog post, they are all “still a work in progress”. Blizzard will use the closed beta period starting on April 26 to see “how players engage with these new locations and game modes.” The map design should change before Overwatch 2’s official release, whenever that is. Unfortunately, the latest official Overwatch 2 news did little to shed light on the most recent rumors. Case in point, we still don’t know if the leaked Soldier 76 redesign is true or if the long-rumored Junker Queen is finally coming out to play. Most likely, we won’t find out more about these until Overwatch 2 comes out of closed alpha.
