This week marked the start of the Summer Games in Blizzard’s latest shooter, Overwatch. The event brought with it new gear and a new game mode featuring the game’s DJ-Hero, Lúcio. However, that was not the only Overwatch news to be released this past week.
Below is a roundup of some of the news for Blizzard’s new and very popular shooter that you might have missed this past week.
The numbers show just how popular Overwatch really is:
In just one month, over 500 million hours were spent playing Overwatch.
The period tracked started with the game’s release on May 24th, and continued until the end of Activision Blizzard’s second financial quarter on June 30th. During that time, over 15 million players joined the game, making the title the fastest-selling PC game in China and beating out League of Legends’ popularity in Korean gaming cafes.
The combined profits from Overwatch, the latest Hearthstone expansion, and the pre-purchases of the latest World of Warcraft expansion, entitled Legion, came together to make Q2 2016 Blizzard’s largest revenue quarter ever. All in all, Blizzard is up 29 percent quarter-over-quarter, and is up 13 percent year-over-year.
You may have a chance to get those Summer Games items next year:
Fans may not have to wait until the 2020 Summer Olympics to have another shot at the Summer Games exclusive gear. If the event is popular enough, it could become an annual event.
“We wanted to try something new with this event,” game director Jeff Kaplan stated on the Battle.net official forums. “As we mentioned in the Developer Update, we’re learning and experimenting with this event. And if the event is received well (my impression so far is that it is being received well once you remove the debate over the items not being available for credits), we will run it again next year. Our Summer Games are on a yearly schedule — not a 4 year schedule. Our plan would be to have the items available again when the event recurs. Perhaps we add new content to it as well? We’re not sure yet… we’re seeing what works and what doesn’t.”
The Overwatch World Cup is coming:
Blizzard has officially announced the Overwatch World Cup. It will be a tournament featuring both pro and amateur players from around the world representing their countries. The event will take place this year, with the finals being held onstage at Blizzcon 2016. Blizzcon does not start until November 6th, but the competition will begin in September, with online qualifiers leading up to the main event.
Blizzard has also detailed how they will choose competitors. From each of the 60 countries that are participating, Blizzard will nominate members of the community, professional and otherwise, who have performed well in Overwatch. This means that even players who have no ties to the pro scene can receive an invite. After the nominees are chosen, the international community will vote on who they want to represent their country. Teams will be formed and the qualifiers will take place, with nations aiming for the 16 slots in the main event, broken down by region to make sure there is an international contingent at Blizzcon.
There is no prize pool up for grabs, but competitors will receive an “appearance bonus,” and a free trip to Blizzcon. Matches will be livestreamed for those who will not be able to make it to Blizzcon.
The first batch of nominations will be going out soon, so watch the email account tied to your Battle.net account.
Players are sneaking in other characters into Lúcioball:
It seems players have found a way to break the new mode that was introduced for the Summer Games: Lúcioball.
Players have found a way to get other Overwatch characters into the mode, with these invading characters being able to kill their opponents (normally Lúcio’s damage is disabled in this mode). Players are accomplishing this by hammering the “H” key on PC as the game starts, which causes the player select screen to appear briefly. When this happens, the game randomly assigns players a character. It appears the glitch is possible on consoles as well.
It is presumed that the glitch will be fixed by Blizzard in the near future.
The Summer Games brought more than just new gear and modes:
The Summer Games began in Overwatch earlier this week, and introduced new gear and a new mode. However, the update brought more than just the new gear and mode.
The biggest change made to the game was balancing adjustments made to McCree and Ana on console. Another adjustment that was made is the new time penalty that was added for leaving competitive matches early. Before, leaving a match would make it so the player would be unable to join a new match until the previous one finished. Now, players will have to wait ten minutes after quitting the match, regardless of how much time was left in the match they just left.
You can read the full patch notes here.
This mashup brings together Overwatch and Jerry Seinfeld:
For some reason, someone dubbed ’90s comedian Jerry Seinfeld over Overwatch hero, Reaper.
In the voice pack mod, all of Reapers actions come paired with a random line from the comedian. Even Reaper’s Ultimate ability comes with a mash of quotes that are barely discernible from each other.
You can check out a video featuring the mod below:
Overwatch is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.