Blizzard Entertainment certainly has a huge franchise under its belt with World of Warcraft, not to mention all things StarCraft, but they still want to do more. It has been almost a year since Blizzard Entertainment unveiled their new multiplayer first-person shooter of Overwatch. Since then, news of the game has emerged, and now a closed beta phase is beginning in North America and other parts in the world. This is what is known about Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch release date and beta news.
According to Game Reactor, Blizzard confirmed that European players will be let into the closed beta for the team-based shooter Overwatch on October 27, the same date that has been confirmed previously for North American testers. This testing includes a closed test, and then wider beta weekends where "the infrastructure will be stress tested".
IGN states that the beta will run for an undetermined amount of time and feature 18 Heroes and seven maps, and then slowly add more players as time goes on. There will also be a beta launch in Asia, and there are currently two game modes. The first is payload, where the attacking team must escort a vehicle to a certain delivery point for a time trial, with a defending team that is trying to stop them. The second is point capture, where the attacking team must capture points on the map, with a defending tem trying to stop them.
Overwatch is set in the near-future Earth, it takes place after a crisis put humanity under threat of Omnic robots. An international task force called Overwatch was created to protect humanity, but then the Overwatch was struck again, killing their leader.
This is just the backstory to the shooter game, which has squad-based combat with two opposing teams of six players each. Normally, shooter games function with a five-on-five style of tournament, so this is a little bit different.
The player can be one of four roles. The first is offense-oriented characters with high speed and attack but low defense. Second, defense-oriented characters meant to form choke points for enemies. Third, support characters that provide buffs and debuffs for their allies and enemies respectively, like healing or speed alterations. The last are tank characters that have a large amount of armor and hit points to withstand enemy attacks. Players can switch between these types of characters within the game following their death, and this can be used strategically. This is another thing about Overwatch that makes it different.
The locations are futuristic enough with advanced technology, but familiar looking enough to resemble real-world locations like London, Japan, and Ancient Egypt.
Overwatch looks to be a game that is poised to be another hit for Blizzard. There still hasn't been any formal release date for Overwatch when it comes to the PC, but there could be a formal declaration at BlizzCon, a two-day gaming convention on November 6-7.
