"Overwatch" has been one of Blizzard's most successful games lately, capitalizing on the MOBA craze that has captured gamers ever since League of Legends and DotA, that glorified custom map from Warcraft III, took PCs by storm. Recently, the game company kept things fresh by releasing a map called "Horizon Lunar Console." And the most exciting part about it? It's set on the Moon.
An abandoned moonbase
According to an article by Gamespot, Horizon Lunar Console is now available on the public test realm for PC, after teasing the map on Monday. Details further disclosed that HLC is an Assault map that is set on a scientific moonbase.
Of course, being that it is set on our friendly neighborhood satellite, players who choose to battle it out on the map will have awesome aerial views of Earth!
For the setting's backstory, Blizzard also provided an official description for the map. Apparently, the moonbase was humanity's "first step" in their renewed interest in space exploration. The purpose of the labs was to examine the effects and impacts of a prolonged stay in outer space, both in humans and apes.
The moonbase was successful in its forays, and even the results of the lab experiments were deemed promising. However, one day, communication with the moonbase just suddenly... ceased.
While the backstory for the map is intriguing, the features that actually impact gameplay are even more promising.
First off, director Jeff Kaplan noted how there are "fun elements" on the map, like the high ground that is common to both sides, somewhere in the landscape's first capture point.
'Overwatch' -- in low-gravity!
And what will be a map for outer space without low-gravity? We can already imagine lots of fun to be had in areas that feature this.
Sadly, it was reported that low-gravity will not be implemented on the whole map; just on some parts of it. This is because Blizzard thought full-map low G would be a gimmick that could "break the game."
Still, even Blizzard probably know how much fun it is to play with low G mechanics, game-breaking mechanics aside. So for a limited time, they added an Arcade option that will implement the low-gravity mechanic on all maps.
It was also reported that even Custom Games can take advantage of this setting now.
"Overwatch" was released just roughly a year ago, in May of 2016. It attracted 7 million players in its first week and maintains a healthy player base even today, making it one of Blizzard's biggest games.
