Overwatch: Single-Character Limit Coming to Quick Play
By Alexander Pan 06 November 2016
During its Overwatch panel at BlizzCon 2016, Blizzard announces that the online multiplayer shooter’s non-competitive Quick Play mode will soon have a single-hero limit.
The BlizzCon 2016 event has seen the announcement of a number of big Overwatch related news items, the most notable being the long-awaited reveal of the mysterious Sombra. While a good portion of the attention was focused on Blizzard’s mysterious new character, the developer also announced a number of other changes coming to its popular online multiplayer shooter, including one small but significant change to the game’s non-competitive Quick Play mode.
Taking a leaf out of the Competitive Play mode, Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan announced at BlizzCon today that Blizzard will be introducing a single-character limit to its Quick Play mode. Given that this single-character limit is currently a big distinguishing factor between the game’s Competitive and Quick Play modes, this new change may not be entirely welcome to those players who simply want a casual lighthearted game as opposed to the more intense skill ranking-based games found in Competitive Play. However, casual players will be pleased to know that there will be an upcoming game mode that will balance out the new Quick Play hero limit, and hopefully allow for more of those lighthearted troll-filled games.
Taking over as Overwatch‘s new mode for fun and casual play will be the upcoming Arcade Mode, which will feature a number of game types for those non-competitive gamers, such as:
- Mystery Duel: A 1v1 best-of-five duel between a player and their opponent in which a hero is randomly selected for both.
- Elimination: A 3v3 best-of-five brawl where a single-hero limit and permadeath applies, meaning that a Mercy will be invaluable for this mode.
- Mystery Heroes: A 6v6 brawl in which the heroes are randomly selected for all players.
- No Limits: This is essentially Quick Play as it is now, in which players can choose which hero they want and how many they want.
- All Brawls: This will function as a “playlist” for all the older and upcoming new weekly Brawls.
This new Arcade Mode will also function as an answer to fan feedback over how the lack of reward in playing the current weekly Brawl Mode isn’t worth it. Players will be able to earn up to three loot boxes a week playing Arcade Mode, while the Brawl Mode will still exist but will be re-badged as “Total Mayhem”.
The new Quick Play single-hero limit and the upcoming Arcade Mode demonstrate Blizzard’s efforts in keeping its online multiplayer shooter fresh for its fanbase, and this effort has undoubtedly played a part in Overwatch becoming Blizzard’s fastest title to hit 20 million players. One thing is for sure, these new changes will certainly provide players a number of suitable avenues to get up to speed with Sombra and her stealthy hacking abilities.
Overwatch is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Source: BlizzCon 2016 (via IGN, Kotaku)
