This marks the first time a timed event has brought a permanent game mode. Previous modes include Lucioball, Junkenstein’s Revenge, and Mei’s Snowball Offensive, all of which came and went once the seasonal event ended. The one caveat to making Capture the Flag a permanent mode is that it will only be available as a custom game.
With its movement to a permanent game mode, Capture the Flag will now feature 12 different maps. Three were made available during the Year of the Rooster event, while the new maps will be pulled from Overwatch‘s capture maps. Nepal, Ilios, and Oasis will each have three smaller maps created from their layout.
Blizzard also announced the introduction of the server browser. Players now have the availability to search exactly what they want to play. Whether it’s a specific game mode or a certain map, the server browser allows players to search and get to it quickly.
“It’s a really cool feature where people can run custom versions of the game, and then other people can find that game in a public list and then join it,” explained Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan in a video. “So we are adding a server browser that lists all the custom games that are running in your region … and there are all sorts of sorting and filtering options to help you find exactly what kind of game you’re looking for.”
Due to these changes, custom games will now reward players with experience just like any other game mode. Even if a mode has been tweaked, players will still be able to level up.
The server browser is live to PC players using the Public Test Region server. Like other updates before it, server browser will be tested and tweaked here before going live in the full game across every platform. There is no mention of how long this will take.
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