One of the biggest games of 2016 was Blizzard’s first-person shooter Overwatch. Gaining massive popularity since its launch back in May of this year, Overwatch became one of the most talked about games not only throughout the summer but for the whole year. The game won several game awards, including Game of the Year. The popular game has gained a massive following with each player pouring in many hours into the game – some even hundreds of hours. So with the year coming to an end, Jeff Kaplan, the game’s director, took to YouTube to offer a recap of the year and what they can expect for next year.
Some of the new features Blizzard plans to implement next year, according to Polygon, are going to appease fans. One being Oasis, a map that’s now in beta on the PC. The map will launch sometime in the early part of 2017. There are also plans to rework the spray and communication wheels by adding customization. Players will now be able to select multiples at a time. Server browsers will also come for custom games.
Kaplan states on the YouTube video that “Right now we have a lot of great functionality in the custom game feature, but not everybody knows that you’re running a custom game.” Blizzard plans to make the matchmaking system more accessible for players, allowing them to pick the custom games they want to join.
However, perhaps the biggest teaser that Kaplan hinted at was the possibility of new heroes coming out next year.
We tend to work on more content than we release because we prototype stuff and sometimes it fails or we don’t like it or we want to go back to the drawing board.
So, essentially, this means that the development team has created some new modes, maps, and heroes, but whether they’ll ever be released for the game is yet to be known. One of the heroes, however, did make it past the art phase, which can only mean that it has a good chance that’ll make it on to Overwatch. But there’s no definitive timeline for any new heroes in Overwatch’s foreseeable future.
But for now, Blizzard is celebrating the end of the year with the game’s Winter Wonderland event and their new installment of the Overwatch comics.