“The most important thing we’re looking out for is: at the end of the day, how can we make Overwatch more fun for our players?” principal game designer Scott Mercer says. He’s discussing the team’s latest idea, as introduced by Jeff Kaplan in the most recent Developer Update video, to do just that. It’s a feature now being tested on the PTR called the Priority Pass that, Mercer hopes, will help equalize the disparate player populations between all three of the game’s roles: tank, support, and damage.

With the Priority Pass, the team seeks to address long Damage queue times by rewarding players who choose to queue as Flex and play another role for a game or two with passes that will decrease their queue times in the future. Before you hop onto the PTR to try out the feature, learn more about what it is and how it came to be from Mercer.

Can you briefly explain what the Priority Pass is?

When you queue for Overwatch, you choose Tank, Support, or Damage. Because Quick P...

You’ve likely done one of them before: slapping a Sorry. speech bubble down over a corpse after pulling off a Play of the Game-worthy team kill; spamming a pixelated version of your hero on the payload while you push it; angling that McCree Wanted poster just right so it’ll frame the face of your teammate’s spray. Sprays are an integral part of the Overwatch experience, whether you’re distorting Cute Moira’s face on that rock in Hanamura or taunting enemies in the kill cam. And, over the game’s lifetime, the Overwatch team has collaborated with a number of different community artists to bring eye-catching event sprays to life.

Overwatch community artist JaviDraws talks art, Symmetra, and what it was like to design sprays for Symmetra’s Restoration Challenge.

How’d you get into the art industry and, more specifically, into illustration and comics?

I’ve always enjoyed drawing since I was a child and began uploading my work online at least a decade ago. Growing alongsid...

Earn new rewards, including Marammat Symmetra, by winning games and watching Overwatch on Twitch. Plus, embark on a journey of understanding with Symmetra and Zenyatta in Christie Golden’s new Overwatch short story, “Stone by Stone.”

From now until November 30, players will be able to earn a player icon, seven unique sprays, and Marammat Symmetra (epic) for a total of nine new rewards.

• EVERYTHING BY DESIGN - Learn how to unlock brand-new Symmetra rewards
• WATCH TO EARN - Earn special Symmetra-themed cosmetics by watching Twitch streams
• NEW COMIC - Learn more about Christie Golden’s new short story, “Stone by Stone”

EVERYTHING BY DESIGN

Bend reality to your will to earn exceptional new content available to unlock in-game. Wins in Quick Play, Competitive Play, or Arcade will all earn you a limited-time player icon, a spray, and a new epic skin: Marammat Symmetra!

These special Symmetra’s Restoration Challenge rewards are a bonus on top of your normal earnings for ...

“We had to develop a few new tools to actually get this to work properly,” Albert Vital, one of the Overwatch team’s technical artists who worked on Shin-Ryeong D.Va, says. In the end, the work paid off: concept artist David Kang’s dream of an untamed fox-girl caught mid-transformation was fully realized by the Overwatch art team in 3D, complete with tails that trail behind her mech-less form while she scampers around the boundaries of teamfights.

Shin-Ryeong D.Va’s pilot form isn’t the only star of this Halloween Terror show. She rides in spooky style, her temple-mech accented by tiny details like guttering candles on her fusion cannons, stone lanterns for boosters, and long strips of fabric that flutter ominously behind her as she hunts for her next kill.

Read on as Vital and Kang share more about the creation of D.Va’s fiercest skin yet.

How did you get started in the industry? What’s your day-to-day like?

Albert Vital: I got started in the industry by jumpin...

At first, concept artist Daryl Tan doesn't even mention "art" when asked to describe his work. "I'm an idea salesperson," he says.

So are all of Daryl’s fellow concept artists on the Overwatch team. And it’s their job to make lots of people—inside Blizzard and out—into believers.

When a player’s interacting with a creative work, they need to be convinced to suspend their disbelief. Immersing you in another world requires an artist to invent credible details and to ensure their work keeps its essence in the face of development iteration. Here’s how the Overwatch team—armed with Photoshop and an aptitude for 2D illustration—does it.

Characters and Weapons

Senior concept artist Qiu Fang started at Blizzard in 2016, and he was soon assigned to work on the Talon units deployed to stop Blackwatch during the Overwatch: Retribution Archives mission. Those units weren’t the stars of the show—that honor always applies to the players’ heroes—but they had to hold their own against Ov...

Soldiers. Scientists. Adventurers. Oddities.

At its core, the story of Overwatch is one of heroes. Individuals from globe-spanning walks of life bonded by their belief in a better future for the world they inhabit. And there’s no better time to delve into the past of a hero familiar to all as the game’s poster girl than with the release of her titular comic, Tracer: London Calling. Before you dive into issue #2, discover more about how this iconic Overwatch character became who she is today.

FROM TEST PILOT TO TIME-JUMPER

The youngest member ever inducted into Overwatch’s experimental flight program, Lena Oxton—callsign: “Tracer”—was a hotshot pilot known for her fearless flying skills and upbeat attitude and the first to test the prototype of the cutting-edge teleporting fighter jet, the OWX-01 Slipstream. However, on the Slipstream’s inaugural flight, the jet’s teleportation matrix malfunctioned, and Oxton found herself a victim of time’s whims, vanishing entirely.

Hour...

Zap! Pow! Bang! Pew Pew! You’ve seen the sound effects in comics, accompanying intense scenes of mayhem and madness. Now, these effects have been made into sprays and stickers that adorn the gauntlets of the latest epic skin, Comic Book Tracer—a love letter to the influence of comics on the themes and style of Overwatch.

There’s more to Comic Book Tracer, however, than just the little details that give her unique artistic flair. The skin is a product of the collaboration between Overwatch concept artists and the talented team behind Tracer: London Calling, the latest comic in the Overwatch universe.

We spoke with Arnold Tsang about the creative process behind the latest Overwatch challenge skin, his love for comics, and what Tracer means to him.

How did you get into concept art and the gaming industry?

I started off in the comic book industry back when I was in high school, then went to college for classical animation. When I graduated, I wasn't sure I wanted to...

Blink into battle now to earn rad new limited-time rewards, including the Comic Book Tracer skin.

From now until September 28, players will be able to earn a player icon, seven unique sprays, and Comic Book Tracer (epic) for a total of nine new rewards.

• LET’S GET TO IT! - Learn how to unlock brand-new Tracer rewards
• WATCH TO EARN - Earn special comic-themed cosmetics by watching Twitch streams
• NEW COMIC - Learn more about issue #1 of the new comic, Tracer—London Calling

LET’S GET TO IT

Pull out your pulse pistols and pew pew your way into the fight with special comic-themed content available to unlock in-game. Wins in Quick Play, Competitive Play, or Arcade will all earn you a limited-time player icon, a spray, and a new epic skin: Comic Book Tracer!

These special Tracer’s Comic 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, during, o...

You’re at the beach, sprawled out on a tastefully patterned towel on the postcard-perfect Mediterranean beachfront in Ilios. The sea breeze softly whispers by, gentle gusts complemented by the song of waves breaking on the shore. It’s perfect. It’s summer paradise.

Until it’s not.

Your reverie is shattered by seven screamed syllables. “No surfing in the swim zone!” shouts what you can only assume is a lifeguard. You hear the sound of torrential water, akin to twin fire hoses being sprayed furiously at a sand dune. Curious, you glance in the direction of this disturbance to your bliss, only to see. . . the lifeguard? Flying through the air toward a wayward surfboarder caught up by the tide? With a water jetpack?

A perfect marriage of futuristic lifeguard style with a hydrosports-inspired water jetpack in place of her combat suit, Lifeguard Pharah is just one of the eight new visions crafted by the Overwatch team’s skin concept artists for the 2020 Overwatch Summer Games. Each year,...

The world needs heroes now more than ever, it seems. And digital heroes need quite a lot to exist: dramatic motivations, iconic aesthetics, deep designs. But they need code in far greater quantities. Over 2.7 million lines of evolving code power the tools that support Overwatch today.

The Architechs on Overwatch’s engine and tools teams are the keepers of that legacy, and there’s no game without their work.

The Engine Team

Overwatch’s engine team builds the technical infrastructure of the game’s many systems, among them graphics, visual effects, gameplay physics, and audio—the “building blocks” that enable development. Lead Software Engineer Phil Teschner, who worked on the Halo series and Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning before joining Blizzard, is the engine team’s chief block wrangler.

Teschner racked up what he says were “way too many hours” in his journey to play every single Blizzard title before his background in multi-platform and graphics development led him to accept a...

It’s your turn to take the stage! Take part in Sigma’s symphony to earn limited-time rewards, including Maestro Sigma (legendary).

From now until July 27, players will be able to earn a player icon, a legendary emote, six unique sprays, and Maestro Sigma (legendary) for a total of nine new rewards.

• THE MAESTRO - Learn how to unlock brand-new Sigma rewards
• WATCH TO EARN - Earn special music-themed cosmetics by watching Twitch streams
• AMP IT UP! - Learn more about the new soundtrack, Overwatch: Cities & Countries

THE MAESTRO

Take part in Sigma’s symphony and shine under the spotlight with special concerto-themed content available to unlock in-game. Wins in Quick Play, Competitive Play, or Arcade will all earn you a limited-time player icon, a legendary emote, and a new legendary skin: Maestro Sigma!

These special Sigma’s Maestro Challenge rewards are a bonus on top of your normal earnings for playing in the Arcade.

WATCH TO EARN

Unlock additional rewards by w...

What is that melody? A brand new collection of Overwatch music, featuring the themes from the game’s maps and missions. Overwatch: Cities & Countries releases worldwide starting Today! Get a taste of the album with the YouTube playlist!

Overwatch:Cities & Countries is undergoing rolling releases across several popular music streaming platforms, going live in each region on July 13. Check back in on PlayOverwatch.com/music to see where you can listen to the soundtrack as it becomes available in your region.*

Plus, tune up your instruments and prepare for a brand new in-game event; Sigma’s Maestro Challenge begins on July 14!

*Streaming platform availability may vary by region.

With the launch of Season 23, Overwatch players will be able to enjoy a new option in Competitive mode with the addition of Open Queue, available starting today. Open Queue, which will live in the Competitive Play menu, will allow players to team up using different compositions from the 2 Tank/2 Damage/2 Support makeups in Role Queue. Furthermore, the Skill Rating (SR) earned in Open Queue will be separate from the SRs earned in Role Queue.

Michael Heiberg, principal game designer on Overwatch, says the decision to add Open Queue to Competitive Play came off the heels of its success in the Arcade, where players can face off in rotating non-standard game modes.

It all started with a simple experiment.

“We were looking at how popular Quick Play Classic has been,” says Heiberg, “and we wondered how successful an open queue alternative for Competitive would be.”

In keeping with some of the team’s main goals for Overwatch this year—fast balancing, lots of experimentation, and rapid it...

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...