Skip to main content
News

Overwatch's new arcade mode a "laboratory" for Blizzard

We discussed arcade mode with Blizzard at BlizzCon.
Sam Bishop 12 November 2016

Among the many new announcements regarding Overwatch at BlizzCon, one of the biggest was the new Arena mode, and we sat down with Principal Game Designer Scott Mercer and Senior Game Designer Michael Chu to learn a bit about Arena and what it will bring to players.

"We sort of see the Arcade as this awesome laboratory for us to try new things, get players new experiences for the game," Mercer said, "so in the Arcade you'll see this 1v1 mystery duel mode where it's a best of nine. You'll play a round where each player will be a random hero, you'll fight it out and the first one to get the five round wins takes the match, and because that's a 1v1 and we didn't need as much space [...] we actually created a new map, Echo Point Antarctica, for this game mode, and it's a pretty interesting map because it's actually where Mei spent her time before."

"It also has this interesting 3v3 elimination mode where you and two friends, or you could queue up solo [...] you can form up a team and it's best of five."

Which of these two modes appeals to you most?

Full profile 10,666 published articles
Why trust Gamereactor
23 Editions Each with its own newsroom and its own scores.
1998 Publishing since Independently owned for the whole of it.
100% Hands-on Written from time with the game, never press material.
1–10 Network Score Every edition’s score, averaged and shown.