Blizzard loves its games’ lore. It loves talking about it, it loves showing it off, it loves making entire events about the lore that’s relevant to the story. That’s what the Archive missions are about in Overwatch. First the Uprising to show off the Omnic Uprising, then Retribution to show off the Blackwatch crew. And now Storm Rising, which shows off the Overwatch Strike team at their finest taking down and apprehending a character who’s only been a name in the background for a little while.
Since the announcement, Storm Rising has shown off what this event was going to be about: the story of how Maximilien is affected by Talon, and how Overwatch takes care of him. It introduced the possibility of where the event would take place, in Havana, Cuba, and it showed off who would be a part of it. The day has finally come that the event takes place, and there is a lot more in it than expected.
First off, the intro video to playing the event is a wildly fun and high-energy chase scene showing off Tracer, Mercy, Winston, and Genji:
Take a breather, the fight’s only beginning.
The first thing to talk about is Sojourn. Sojourn was hinted at in the first video about the event, where she hijacked Soldier: 76’s account and talked about the case. At the time, we only had a voice. In the trailer, we get a face.
Now, this isn’t the first time that players have seen Sojourn. Albeit, she looks a little different, but this is one of the faces that had shown up in one of Overwatch’s first animated shorts, “Recall”. This is towards the end of the video, and it’s a ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ moment. But she’s there, and it’s possible she’s coming back:
Onto the location. Havana is bright, sunny, and big. One of what feels like Overwatch’s biggest maps. However, similar to how Rialto was during the Retribution event, it’s possible that players were moving through sections on the map that eventually were cut when the map was added into the roster. Havana, might be that case.
Due to the story, the map is a combo of walking and payload, similar to how Uprising was on Kings Row. And playing through the map several times, it looks to be set up as a possible Escort or Capture/Escort combo map. Again, hard to tell, but the lines through the map say otherwise, even in sections where there is no payload, such as the Rumbotico Distillery that had been mentioned in the Havana Times page on the Overwatch website.
And it finally opens up to the Sea Fort, starting to rage with an early hurricane in the midst, also mentioned in the newspaper clippings. And once the payload reaches the end… well…
There’s a few more hints and teases as to what might be coming into the game… or who.
Overwatch’s Storm Rising is currently live and goes until May 6, 2019.