Blizzard has confirmed the Overwatch Summer Games is back next week. In this week’s Developer Update, Jeff Kaplan gave some details on their plans for the event. We got information on upcoming new skins, gameplay changes, and the return of Summer Games 2016 items too. So what can we expect from the upcoming event?
Let’s take a look at all the information we have so far!
When Will the Summer Games Event Start?
Blizzard confirmed in the Developer Update and on the Overwatch Twitter that the event will start on Tuesday, August 8th. As with previous events, it will run for three weeks, ending on Monday, August 28th. It’s a little later than we predicted, as we thought it would’ve started by now. However, it’s still pretty soon.
New Skins Coming With the Summer Games Event
In the Developer Update, Kaplan confirmed a few of the skins that we can expect to see in the event. He said that he didn’t want to spoil too much of the surprise, so we can expect more information just before the event goes live next week. But we do have a little bit to go on so far!
First of all, Roadhog is…not getting anything. Is it possible Kaplan was just teasing us because of the Roadhog nerfs? Or was it simply a slip? Either way, he joked that Roadhog won’t be getting any new content this event. Instead, we will see a Legendary skin for Junkrat and it will be sports-themed! Could it be tennis-themed like the spray above? There’s also been a single string found in another datamining expedition that hints at a beach theme. The line says, “Back to the beach”. You can check out the full results of the datamining in Redditor Yernemm’s post.
Kaplan also confirmed that his “favorite skin of all time” for Mercy will be coming out. According to the data-mining on the PTR a while back, Mercy’s skin is not Summer Games themed. We’re not sure what it could be, but either way if Jeff Kaplan is excited, we’re excited. He also said that Widowmaker and McCree fans would be “blown away”. This is interesting, as both of these heroes got skins last year. We don’t know how many other skins there’ll be, but at least that’s something to go on.
The Return of Summer Games 2016 Skins
Blizzard confirmed finally that Summer Games 2016 items (and therefore skins) are definitely coming back for this event. Players can purchase them for credits. The best news here is that the skins will only cost the regular skin cost, not the event cost. For example, a Legendary skin normally costs 1,000 credits. During events, event-specific Legendaries cost 3,000 credits.
For the returning event, the skins will be reduced to their normal everyday value. This means players can pick up an old event Legendary for only 1,000 credits. This is great news if Blizzard decides to continue this for future returning events. Those skins you missed in other events could be much easier to obtain.
We’ll have to see what route Blizzard chooses to take going forward, but this is a pretty good indicator of what their plans are.
Lucioball Will Be Back, With Some Changes
One of the favorite parts of the Summer Games event was Lucioball. The community has been hoping for its return along with the event this year, and we’ve got confirmation that we’ll be seeing the popular game mode in the Arcade. Even better, there have been some changes and improvements made.
First of all, there’s a new map in Sydney, Australia. Again, this could be good news for future events where there were special game modes. Could we see new maps for Junkenstein’s Revenge or the Uprising game modes?
Also, players will no longer be able to stand in the enemy goal, nor will they be able to boop enemies. Lucio’s ultimate has also been modified within the game mode – it will now increase speed and jumping height, and reduce the cooldown of Soundwave allowing for more frequent booping. All of these changes prevent a cheesy strategy of booping the enemy goalie out of their goal and using the old ultimate to pull the ball in. It’ll be great to see how strategy for the game mode changes.
The Arrival of Competitive Lucioball
Kaplan also mentioned Copa Lucioball, which is a competitive Lucioball mode in the Arcade. It’ll only exist during the event until August 28th, but until then players will be able to compete in a more serious ranked version of the game mode.
Players who complete their 10 placement matches will receive a special spray. On top of that, if you place in the top 500 during the event, there’s an additional spray to unlock.
Event Changes
One thing that the Summer Games event did differently last year was that the items couldn’t be unlocked with credits. The only way to obtain skins, for example, was to get them in a Loot Box. This changed for future events, but it was unclear whether we’d see the same changes to the return of the Summer Games event.
Thankfully, Jeff Kaplan confirmed that all new content can also be unlocked with credits. It’s most likely that the unlocks will cost the full event price as before. However, if the return of last year’s items is an indicator, we will be able to purchase the content next year at a reduced credit cost.
The Loot Box changes will also be helpful here. Blizzard reduced the chance for receiving duplicates a little while ago, so hopefully we’ll have an easier time of unlocking all the content we want.
Closing Thoughts
The above image was seen in an official Overwatch Instagram Story
It’s exciting that the Summer Games is making a return. Blizzard confirmed it was one of the most popular events. Aside from that, we now know that we’ll see a return of the other events. The decisions Blizzard makes for this event will shape how other events will play out in the future. For example, we’ll likely see content from previous events return for a credit purchase, and at a cheaper price than they were originally. Jeff Kaplan also said, “And there’s some silly stuff too…and I’m just going to leave that for you guys, and you’ll know what I’m talking about in a little bit.”
We don’t have all the information yet, but next week we’ll share everything you need to know about the Overwatch Summer Games 2017 event. We’ll share some screenshots of all the skins and unlocks, as well as thoughts on Copa Lucioball.
For now, we’ll just all have to look forward to the event!
