An ‘Overwatch’ map editor is more likely than you might think

By Gabe Gurwin March 21, 2017

[NOW AVAILABLE] Oasis | New Map Preview | Overwatch

Overwatch continues to be one of the best multiplayer games on the market, with continuous free updates, additional characters, and new maps to help shake up the formula every so often. The maps available to players currently come completely from the minds of Blizzard’s designers, but the developer is open to giving map editing tools to the community in the future.

“We are extremely open-minded about releasing a map editor for Overwatch someday,” director Jeff Kaplan said on the game’s official forums. “But because Overwatch was made with a brand new engine, this is not a small task of one which can happen any time soon.”

Blizzard is no stranger to editing its own maps after they’ve been released into the wild, either. The “Eichenwalde” map, for instance, had one of its gates removed in a patch released in late February, though we’ve never seen anything changed to the scale that community members are likely to change it. Could “Route 66” turn into a skyscraper-filled metropolis that is more suited to Widowmaker’s sniper rifle than McCree’s revolver? Only time — and a lot of time — will tell.

“We have [a map editor] on our long-term road map and believe heavily in user made content,” Kaplan added. “But there are many challenges ahead of us and it will be a very long road before our editor can be made available to the public.”

Right now, much of Blizzard’s focus has been on releasing a steady stream of post-launch characters. The latest of these is Orisa, a robotic tank character with a long-range cannon, and shield and fortification abilities that make her a much less stationary target than Reinhardt or Roadhog. It’s still unclear if and when Doomfist will see the light of day — the character has been swirling around rumor mills since before Overwatch released, and actor Terry Crews has repeatedly express interest in voicing him should he be added to the game.

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Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

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