Despite the Uprising Event ending this week, Overwatch already has some new content ready to go. Today’s Overwatch update adds a new map, Hanzo’s rework, and some minor hero balance changes. Rialto is the new map and might be familiar from anyone who played Uprising’s PvE event. It’s a remixed Escort version of that PvE map based in Italy but adapted for PvP play. The map features gondolas, canals, and probably still a sniper who won’t help escort the payload. Some things you can’t fix in an update.
However, Hanzo, one of those snipers, is finally seeing his highly anticipated rework. The memefied and annoying Scatter Arrow is no longer in the game, but is instead being replaced by Storm Arrows. This ability allows Hanzo to rapidly fire up to six arrows at full charge but each does less damage than a regular arrow.
Similarly to Genji, Hanzo can also now Lunge, which is essentially a horizontal double jump. Both Storm Arrows and his Lunge abilities help him engage enemies up close or stay farther away. Blizzard also reduced the area of effect and cooldown of his Sonic Arrow and made his overall arrow travel speed faster.
Other heroes saw some slight tuning too. Junkrat’s RIP-Tire now moves slightly slower and his grenades are a little smaller, which forces him to be more accurate. Brigitte’s Shield Bash is now more fair and doesn’t have as wide of an area of effect. Tracer’s Pulse Bomb isn’t as deadly to tanks as it now does only 300 damage instead of 400. Genji’s Deflect hitbox has been reduced so it doesn’t reflect “projectiles that were pretty far away from him.” And finally, Lúcio’s wallride has been tweaked in a number of different ways.
This update, however, does not contain two things: the upcoming Symmetra rework and modified Horizon Lunar Colony map. Blizzard has described their plans with Symmetra though. Everything from her weapon to her Teleporter will be altered in an upcoming patch, but we don’t know exactly when.
Horizon’s defender-friendly changes were accidentally leaked onto the PTR and Blizzard said back in April that the changes will not be in today’s patch. While Blizzard gave Overwatch players a lot today, these eventual changes give them something else to look forward to.
