Overwatch 2 Season 4 has just over a month left before Season 5 debuts if Blizzard adheres to its regular schedule. However, there is still plenty of time left to enjoy the Space Opera season, especially now that the limited-time game mode Starwatch: Galactic Rescue has been released. With free rewards for completing games and interesting storylines to discover, it's easy to see why much of the player base is excited about it.
Starwatch is shaping up to be quite the game-changer for Overwatch 2 as it implements both PvP and PvE elements. Non-canon story features have been seen before in modes such as the Halloween event Junkenstein's Revenge: Wrath of the Bride, while PvP is common in games like Battle For Olympus and Love of Geometry. Starwatch is proving itself to be a unique mixture of both, with many calling it a story-rich "4CP" game mode.
Overwatch 2 Finds a Way to Return 2CP Maps
For the latest event, Blizzard chose to reskin an old map from the original Overwatch, Horizon Lunar Colony, rather than create a new one. This decision likely saved quite a bit of time on the development end and left room to focus on the storyline. Starwatch features several nods to Star Wars, with Echo being renamed "3CH-O" and the Starwatch: An Echo of Hope motion comic beginning with scrolling text depicting a rebellion suffering under the cruel reign of Galactic Emperor Sigma.
There is some variation across what was once called Horizon Lunar Colony, such as the turrets used to keep the prisoners from escaping, but overall it remains largely the same with its infrastructure and medkit placement. Long-term fans may remember that Horizon Lunar Colony was quite controversial during its run in the first Overwatch, primarily due to it being an Assault/2CP map. It was one of the few maps to be removed from the game entirely and prior to this wasn't even featured in Ranked or Overwatch League matches.
2CP was well known for favoring the defending team due to the close spawn rooms on the second point that could make it difficult for attacking teams to capture. In spite of this, some fans were still hoping to see Overwatch Assault maps return in some form because they were some of the most visually pleasing in the game. Paris, Hanamura, Temple of Anubis, and Volskaya Industries have all been replaced with Push maps in Overwatch 2 since the removal of 2CP, so they are no longer playable in standard game modes.
While it's too soon to say if Starwatch is going to affect Overwatch 2 long-term, Blizzard reworking Horizon Lunar Colony and using it to its advantage for 4v4 shows promise. The four-point capture does appear to serve the defending team best, similar to when the map only had two capture points, but it still provides interactive gameplay that has players continuing to queue. The zero gravity elements that occur near the end of the game, along with gravity beacons that function like Zarya's Graviton Surge, add variation that hasn't been seen before.
In the past, Blizzard spoke about reworking Assault maps but hadn't shown anything for them just yet. It's clear now that these abandoned maps are still viable contenders for Overwatch 2 and players may get to see more of them in the future if Blizzard continues this trend. The mode will be available until May 22 and can be found in the Arcade tab.
Overwatch 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
