In summer season 2023, Blizzard debuted Overwatch 2’s Flashpoint, a mix of Management and Assault the place groups race to occupy a sequence of territory factors. Flashpoint was the primary new map sort for the sequence because the unpopular Push launched alongside Overwatch 2, and form of a giant deal. It was additionally form of a catastrophe.
Virtually instantly upon launch, Reddit crammed up with complaints in regards to the mode’s map designs. Quick ahead to Overwatch 2 season 17, which kicked off on Tuesday, with a set of redesigned Flashpoint maps and it’s a a lot completely different story. Blizzard’s extra relaxed strategy to letting folks play Overwatch 2 the best way they need has turned Flashpoint into a good time.
Two years in the past, the Overwatch 2 design staff stated in a sequence of roundtable interviews forward of the mode’s launch that they needed line of sight to play a key function in Flashpoint. They hoped that gamers would create avenues of fight — avenue fights, principally — on the best way to the target. Properly, it didn’t work out like that. Gamers received misplaced on the overly lengthy routes to every flashpoint, matches had been boring and predictable, and on the middle of all the issues was a set of actually lengthy hallways.
The unique Suravasa and New Junk Metropolis had been rigidly designed so that you simply needed to take considered one of a number of monotonous paths to the identical location, and the looks of alternative was principally an phantasm. One possibility all the time ran close to the opposing staff’s spawn level, whereas one other was normally extra circuitous or might even lead you within the fallacious route.
Skilled gamers adopted the optimum route each time, and any stragglers that went a unique method had been virtually assured to get obliterated or be of no assist in any respect within the struggle going down what felt like miles away. Even when the motion lastly broke out on the flashpoint itself, it was predictable and little completely different from taking part in Management. The enemy staff would all the time strategy from the identical route for worry of time working out or getting bulldozed in the event that they strayed too near your spawn level. This was what Blizzard needed, so this was the way it needed to be carried out.
That’s not the case after the season 17 replace. Routes are shorter in Suravasa and New Junk Metropolis’s redesigns, for one factor, however they’re additionally peppered with completely different buildings to cover in and shortcuts to different areas that make these random avenue fights Blizzard initially envisioned more likely to occur. It’s much less like having a sequence of islands linked by lengthy corridors and extra like a large polygon with a sequence of twisting, interconnected alleyways and break up ranges to mess around in.
The redesigns permit for extra creativity in how you utilize your hero’s particular skills, too. Flying characters can keep away from chokepoints solely or hold unfortunate opponents trapped in a constructing. Genjis and Widowmakers can plan assassinations by hiding in watch for the unwary, whereas flankers like Echo and Tracer have so many extra choices for taking enemies without warning. Flashpoint went from being the weakest mode to the one which performs like a pure extension of the philosophy behind hero perks and Stadium mode. You possibly can play it the way you need with the hero you favor and doubtless even provide you with methods the builders by no means meant.
It helps that Blizzard gave a few of the precise Flashpoint places a redesign as properly, making them extra visually distinct and simply extra enjoyable to play. Suravasa’s temple, for instance, beforehand had two predominant areas, with the central goal accessible through an extended staircase that nearly all the time led you into the road of fireplace of the complete enemy staff. Now, it’s received a center and a decrease layer you’ll be able to work round, and the staircase results in a small platform the place you’ll be able to extra successfully maintain your floor. New Junk Metropolis’s Junkyard, the map’s most boring goal location, has extra avenues resulting in the flashpoint and fewer bottlenecks so battles by no means play out the identical method twice.
These and dozens of different little enhancements — new sight blockers, greater entryways right into a flashpoint, extra areas to maneuver in when you’re on the purpose — make Flashpoint really feel a lot freer and extra unpredictable. So spare a thought for Flashpoint if it exhibits up within the pre-round map voting roulette. It’s simply Overwatch 2’s greatest mode now.
