You’ve pulled off incredible POTGs, pushed millions of payloads, booped your foes off the map and into oblivion, and danced your way into the hearts of your teammates. It’s been an incredible four years of Overwatch. For the Overwatch team, it’s also been years of ingenuity, of creating a game that is a love letter to an auspicious future in which anyone––soldiers, adventurers, scientists, oddities––can become a hero. Years of art, engineering, programming, and development to bring together millions of players worldwide and foster the creation of bonds and memories. And, since the inception of Overwatch, we’ve made countless memories of our own.

To commemorate the game’s fourth anniversary, a few team members took the time to share some of their favorite moments from the development of Overwatch and the past several years of fun that the game has brought.

Dylan Jones, lead character technical artist:

Once upon a time, when trying to figure out how Brigitte’s flail wo...

You’re powered up, get in there!

It's been an incredible year, and we're so thankful you were a part of it. To celebrate our fourth Overwatch Anniversary together—and the community that made it all possible (that's you!)—all players who log in this weekend on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or Nintendo Switch will receive double experience.

This bonus will apply to nearly all sources of in-game XP, including:

• Time spent in a match
• Completing a match
• Completing consecutive matches
• Winning a match
• Backfilling a match in progress
• Earning medals

It will also stack multiplicatively with existing group and IGR bonuses. The only experience it will not affect is your First Win of the Day bonus—which will remain at 1500 XP.

This bonus experience period begins in all regions across all platforms on Friday, June 5 at 11:00 a.m. PDT and ends on Tuesday, June 9 at 11:59 p.m. PDT. If you'd like to see when the bonus will go live in your region, check out the reference guides below. For a...

Overwatch concept artist Qiu Fang has a knack for envisioning rugged, outdoorsy characters. Four years ago, when he was an art student with aspirations of becoming a character concept artist, Fang began a personal project depicting a ragtag group of nomadic hunters. The concepts displayed careful control of a muted color palette, precise line art, and small details of equipment and improvised technology that hinted at a world beyond the images.

Fang was proud of his work, but he never expected what happened next: The Overwatch team found his project and recruited him.

“Everything in Qiu’s design seemed to have purpose and function,” says concept artist David Kang, who stumbled across Fang’s work on the portfolio website ArtStation. “I loved that he had a lot of experience not only in fantasy but with functional mechanical tech.”

After a successful series of interviews, Fang left school and joined Blizzard. Now he uses his considerable artistic powers to bring the world of Overwatc...

The first official Overwatch novel from critically acclaimed author Nicky Drayden is coming June 2! The Hero of Numbani tells the full story behind Efi and Orisa’s heroic origins, offers a glimpse into Talon’s machinations in Numbani, and provides some must-know hints at things to come. This action-packed tale is available to purchase from Scholastic now.

Read on for a summary of this captivating original novel followed by an sneak peek into Efi and Orisa’s adventure.

Book Summary:

In the technologically advanced African city of Numbani, in the not-so-distant future, humans live in harmony with humanoid robots known as omnics. But when a terrorist tries to shatter that unity, a hero named Efi Oladele rises!

Efi has been making robots since she was little -- machines to better her community and improve people's lives. But after she witnesses Doomfist's catastrophic attack on the city's OR15 security bots, Efi feels the call to build something greater: a true guardian of Numbani.

Fighter jet. Blue. Easy-listening music. For most, seeing these listed side-by-side might prompt an eyebrow raise or a second glance. But for Geoff Garnett, senior sound designer on Overwatch? These concepts comprise the 750+ voice line-strong audio core of the game’s newest hero, Echo.

“We started with some key words and phrases that informed and directed me as I went along,” says Garnett, describing the infancy of Echo’s sound development. “For her, I was told she should feel like a fighter jet; she’s the most advanced tech in Overwatch; she’s an adaptive robot. So, I was looking at her model and saw that she doesn’t really have many servos.”

The servos Garnett refers to are electricity-and-gear-based motor systems that often make up the inner workings of vehicles and assembly line robots––both a far cry from Echo’s sleek, ultramodern aesthetic.

“All of her limbs are just kind of hovering,” Garnett continues, “which meant that there wasn’t going to be a traditional bweep, bweep,...

Countless times, she had put on a hazmat suit and goggles and passed through the four doors of the makeshift sterilized area into the infirmary that had been converted from a normal hospital space into a COVID-19 ward. Because she’s small in stature, the bulky suit impeded her hurried steps. On her chest, her name was written in black marker, and on her back was the phrase, “Heroes Never Die.”

Her name is Weiwei. She is a regular Overwatch player, as well as a member of the National Medical Team from the Xi’an Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiantong University in Shaanxi Province, who was dispatched to assist in the Hubei province during the COVID-19 outbreak.

At age 27, Weiwei was the youngest doctor in the Shaanxi Province team. She volunteered after receiving a request from the hospital on Feb. 7. The team left Xi’an on the evening of Feb. 8 for Hubei and arrived at the vicinity of Tongji Hospital in Wuhan the same night.

Celebrate the arrival of Overwatch’s newest hero, Echo! Now through April 20, earn unique, Echo-themed rewards by watching streams on Twitch.

• WATCH TO EARN – Earn special Echo-themed cosmetics by watching Twitch streams
• FLASH OPS: ECHO SHOWDOWN - Compete for $50,000 in prizing
• ECHOED ORIGINS - Learn more about Echo and her creator, Dr. Mina Liao

WATCH TO EARN

Unlock Echo-themed rewards by watching Twitch channels streaming in the Twitch Overwatch game category. Tune in to any Twitch streamer while they’re playing Overwatch now through April 20 to earn six Echo sprays!

IMPORTANT: To be eligible to receive these Twitch Drops, you must first link your Blizzard account to your Twitch account. Visit the Twitch Connections page to log in and complete the link now.

For more information on Twitch Drops, watch the video below!

We’ll be spotlighting Overwatch content creators while Echo drops are available! Catch some of your favorite creators throughout the event to unlock...

Focus your beams, prime your sticky bombs, and get ready to glide into the Echo Showdown. To celebrate the introduction of the new damage hero, Echo, and to give players a chance to show off their skills with this advanced evolutionary combat robot, we’re hosting a tournament that’s open to everyone! 

Tournament Details 

• Signups begin April 14 and extend until April 17. Matches will be held on April 18 and 19 PDT using the GameBattles tournament platform.  
  • Day one (April 18th) matches will begin in EU at 3:00 AM PDT and NA at 1:00 PM PDT 
  • Day two (April 19th) matches will begin in EU at 3:00 AM PDT and NA at 1:00 PM PDT 
• Participating teams will ALWAYS be required have an Echo in play. Tri-shot your hardest, we want to see what you’ve got! 
• Overwatch League and Contenders players will be eligible to compete, though only two can play on a team at any given time. 
• Prizes: 
  • We’ve booted up the duplication assimilation matrix and mirrored our prizes across both ...

Since the introduction of Map Pools late last year and Hero Pools in early March, we’ve heard a lot of great feedback from players on both of these systems, including what they like about them and what they find confusing or unclear. Based on that, we’ll be making some changes to both systems starting next week. Here’s what’s in store.

Unifying the Hero Pools

We’ve received a lot of helpful feedback since Hero Pools came to Competitive Play that the system was achieving our goal of shaking up the meta from week to week—but we’ve also heard that some aspects of the system are confusing or unclear, including why certain heroes or roles are rotated each week, or why the exact number of heroes available is inconsistent from week to week. In addition, having separate Hero Pools for Competitive Play and the Overwatch League in the same week led to a confusing or disjointed experience for players who follow the League.

Starting April 13, we intend to address this by having a single...

This year’s Archives event brings deadly new modifiers to your favorite missions, challenging you to demonstrate your tactical finesse in Rialto, King’s Row, and Havana. Looking for a story recap before you dive into the action? We’ve got you covered.

SPOILERS ahead for the Retribution, Uprising, and Storm Rising missions!

Retribution

Eight years ago, an explosive attack by the terrorist organization Talon left an Overwatch facility in Rome devastated and took dozens of agents’ lives. Since Overwatch itself was unable to retaliate in an official capacity, Gabriel Reyes, head of the organization’s covert ops division, Blackwatch, took it upon himself to enact revenge. With a strike team composed of former Deadlock Gang member–turned-Blackwatch-agent Jesse McCree, cybernetic ninja Genji Shimada, and geneticist Moira O’Deorain, Reyes set out to pursue Talon. The target: influential businessman and high-ranking Talon member Antonio Bartalotti. Residence: Venice, Italy.

The team...

You’ve seen her before: a sleek, cyclopean omnic, hovering in the backlines of the earliest Overwatch roster art. You’ve heard whispers of her progenitor: Mina Liao, one of the founders of Overwatch, her expertise invaluable to Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, and Ana Amari against the looming threat of the Omnic Crisis. Now, she’s finally here—Echo, the 32nd hero to join the ranks of the Overwatch roster.

“Echo is a really special character for us in that our players have known about her for a very long time,” says Overwatch’s Game Director Jeff Kaplan, his fondness for the game’s newest hero evident, like a parent speaking about the child they’ve watched grow up and just sent off to college. “Players had actually seen Echo in earlier versions of the artwork for Overwatch. She was featured in the “Reunion” cinematic, where McCree frees her from the Deadlock Gang.”

While we’ve had several glimpses of Echo throughout the years, Dr. Mina Liao is a relatively new figure to Overwatc...

Every week when players log in to Overwatch, it should feel fresh and different.

That’s the dream Principal Game Designer Scott Mercer has for Overwatch—and, starting in Competitive Season 21, it’ll become a reality. With the introduction of Hero Pools, a rotation curated by the Overwatch team will be available in Competitive Play, and one tank, one support, and two damage heroes will be unavailable from the roster each week with the intent to keep the meta fresh and encourage hero diversity in matches.

Interested in the philosophy behind the newest change to Competitive play? Mercer provided some insight into how Hero Pools will shake things up in Season 21.

Where did the concept of Hero Pools come from?

Scott Mercer: We get feedback from our players about how the meta doesn’t change often enough. Especially at the highest ranks of the game, like Master and Grandmaster, we’ve seen the meta become more defined. The better you are at the game, the more you start to see the e...

Jeff Kaplan and Michael Heiberg are debating the relative popularity of ice cream flavors.

“I always thought chocolate was the flavor everybody would like most,” says Kaplan, Overwatch’s game director.

Heiberg, a principal game designer, shakes his head. “Statistically, vanilla is more popular.”

“All right, so—statistically, vanilla is the flavor,” says Kaplan. “People have a propensity toward certain ice cream flavors, just like they do toward roles in Overwatch.”

They’re trying to explain how they came up with the Triple Damage (one tank, three damage, two support) team composition set to be tested in Overwatch’s new Experimental mode. It’s a significant change, and the team isn’t sure how it’s going to work out, but that’s the beauty of Experimental mode: allowing players across all platforms to test the dev team’s wildest ideas without leaving the client. 

Kaplan and Heiberg laid out the full story behind Experimental mode, plus a full breakdown of what Triple Dama...

Grab your beads and join the bacchanalia now through March 9 to earn unique, Mardi Gras-inspired rewards. Laissez les bons temps rouler! 

From now until March 9, players will be able to earn two limited-time player icons, 7 sprays, and the epic Mardi Gras Ashe skin, for a total of 10 new rewards.

• GET IN THERE - Learn how to unlock brand new Ashe rewards
• WATCH TO EARN – Earn special Ashe-themed cosmetics by watching Twitch streams
• COURTESY OF THE DEADLOCK GANG - Learn more about Ashe merchandise

GET IN THERE

Don your purple, green, and gold, and enjoy the celebration with special Mardi Gras content available to unlock in-game. Wins in Quick Play, Competitive Play, or Arcade will all earn you two limited-time player icons, a spray, and a new epic skin: Mardi Gras Ashe!

These special Ashe’s Mardi Gras Challenge rewards are a bonus on top of your normal earnings for playing in the Arcade

WATCH TO EARN

Unlock additional rewards by watching Twitch streamers before,...

At Blizzard, we make games to bring people together, and yet it’s still such a wonderful surprise to learn of the players who stay together. In celebration of Valentine’s Day, we interviewed a couple of couples who decided to make their two-stack life-long after finding each other through Overwatch.

Katja and Chris

After a rough breakup, Katja truly believed she would never find a romantic partner again. Then she met her future husband, Chris, on a fan-art Twitch stream. Katja, born and raised in Germany, says she was brought to that particular stream because the artist was painting her favorite hero, McCree (who she has 600 hours of playtime on), in his 2017 Halloween Terror event skin: Van Helsing.

Katja talked to Chris for the very first time on that Twitch stream, and joined the artist’s Discord server afterward to continue talking to him. What made Chris stand out, Katja says, was how kind he was on an internet that wasn’t always so friendly to her. Chris, who lived in Austra...

The 2020 Overwatch League season has arrived.

Join us for Week 1 action in New York and Dallas!

All matches will air live on YouTube and OverwatchLeague.com.WATCH NOW

Week 1 Schedule

Saturday, Feb. 8

• Toronto Defiant vs. Paris Eternal—1 p.m. ET
• London Spitfire vs. New York Excelsior—3 p.m. ET
• Los Angeles Gladiators vs. Vancouver Titans—5 p.m. ET
• Los Angeles Valiant vs. Dallas Fuel—7 p.m. ET

Sunday, Feb. 9

• London Spitfire vs. Paris Eternal—1 p.m. ET
• Boston Uprising vs. New York Excelsior—3 p.m. ET
• Los Angeles Valiant vs. Vancouver Titans—5 p.m. ET
• San Francisco Shock vs. Dallas Fuel—7 p.m. ET

New This Season

• We’re got new team gear for 2020. Iconic streetwear designer Jeff Staple worked with players and the league to reimagine esports gear.
• The future of Overwatch League stats has arrived. Stats Lab gives fans access to a host of player, team, match, and teamfight statistics.
• The league is implementing Hero Pools in March. Here’s how it will work.
• Fan ...

“We’re taking off the oven mitts,” says gameplay engineer Dan Reed.

“What?” says fellow gameplay engineer Zach Metcalf. “You mean like, the training wheels?”

“Like, now you can burn your hand, but you can also do things much more efficiently,” says Reed.

They’re talking about the new patch for Overwatch’s Workshop, the in-game scripting system that allows players to craft their own custom game modes. Along with adding new maps, tools, and quality-of-life improvements, the patch (available now on the Public Test Region, or PTR) lifts an unwieldy restriction that was designed to protect creators from crash-inducing errors. That’s the story of the Workshop in this patch: more power, fewer limitations, and—Reed and Metcalf hope—even cooler creations as a result.

Reed and Metcalf share a particular passion for the Workshop born partly from their personal histories. Reed is a seasoned Blizzard veteran who’s been on the Overwatch team since the very beginning; he was one of the fi...

An actor, clothed in vibrant, intricately embellished garb, moves synchronously with the beat of percussion-heavy music. A drumbeat and fan-flutter later, they don a crimson face that scowls at the audience; with a wave of their hand, that guise is gone, replaced by a pale, smirking mask, the edges of its lips quirked upwards in an uncanny jester’s grin.

How do they accomplish such feats of suspenseful fun and sleight-of-hand?

That’s a secret the two hundred remaining Bian Lian masters—and, now, Sombra, having joined their ranks with her new legendary Face Changer skin created in celebration of the 2020 Lunar New Year—will never divulge.

Bian Lian, known colloquially in the West as “face changing,” originated in the Qing Dynasty during the seventeeth century as a subgenre of the Sichuan opera. The art used to be simple, with performers only changing a few faces per performance; now, most professionals can swap through more than eighteen masks in a single show. With only six at her...

We wouldn’t normally instruct anyone to “treat” themselves to an avalanche, but if it comes in the form of Overwatch fan art from the new Winter Wonderland event, bring it on! (Also, we’re based in Irvine, California, so we don’t know what an “avalanche” is but they sound pretty exciting.)

Here are some of our favorite pieces of fan art we’ve seen so far:

We’ll start things off with a piece by Twitter user @nununumunu depicting Ice Fisherman Roadhog making friends (?) with some adorable seals….

pic.twitter.com/X9ocD7HFxx

— ぬたろ (@nununumunu) December 11, 2019

Introducing the Dad Starter Pack, Winter Edition, drawn by @art_cerealex: ugly sweater plus hot cocoa! (The shoulder pouches just contain more cocoa packets.)

✨ Ugly Sweater 76 ✨

This skin.... just glorious... and it’s ‘free’ to get!!
I’m running to get those victories!!

Also I’m pretty sure Jack is the type of guy who proudly wears an ugly sweater and even brag about it. Best man.#overwatch #soldier #s...

When searching for gifts for his family two holiday seasons ago, Morten Skaalvik turned to a celebrated classic: the Ugly Winter Sweater. Skaalvik, a concept artist on the Overwatch team, ended up buying his entire family sweaters based on their favorite TV shows. So when it came time to design Soldier 76’s new Winter Wonderland skin, “Ugly Sweater: 76,” Skaalvik was ready. He’d been training for this moment for years.

“I remember seeing someone from the community changing Soldier 76’s grumpy Halloween spray into a grumpy ugly Christmas sweater,” Skaalvik recalls during our interview. “And it was just such a perfect fit for him. It fits his dad persona so well while still being fun and wholesome. When I got the task to design a winter epic skin for Soldier 76, I knew the stars had aligned, and the time for Ugly Sweater: 76 had finally arrived.”

Over the three years Skaalvik has been an artist on the Overwatch team, he has created many of the game’s beloved skins, including Cultist ...