During our Twitch Makes Overwatch livestream last December, developers teamed up with the community to think up one of the most exaggerated concepts for an Overwatch 2 map ever. Senior game director Aaron Keller, art director Dion Rogers, and community manager Andy Belford all followed your suggestions to build a one-of-a-kind, non-canon Control map that’s surely a death trap for nearly every Overwatch hero. Thus, the underwater base Talon was born, featuring jump pads and an elevator that allows players to choose up to five different ways to approach the control point. Now, at long last, the community will be able to play this Talantis map for a limited time today through May 8.
All Overwatch 2 maps begin with a “blockout”, which builds from basic shapes to establish a general play style and theme. The blockout for Talantis was created in a span of a few hours while live on stream, with Twitch viewers commenting on features they wanted to see added to the map. It will have a “work-in-progress" look that gives you an insight into our development process. By comparison, a fully completed map takes several months of development and collaboration of many different teams. Then we added some thematic lighting, lots of giant fish, and waterfalls from the leaky dome of the city to help set the scene and inspire your imagination. Just watch out for incoming fire from the high ground, and don’t get knocked off the map into the waters below!
Talantis is sure to bring out new and unique ways to play that you will never find in any of our fully released maps. Heroes with knockbacks like Lucio, Pharah, and other heroes with knockbacks will have unique advantages to boop targets nearly everywhere on the battlefield, but they can be easily chased down if you use the jump pads carefully to get above them. We expect there to be a lot of flanking, as the paths below allow easy access to the enemy side of the field, and you never know which way an opponent will take. There will be plenty of time to try them all, as all three rounds take place on the same control point.
Log into Overwatch 2 and check out the limited-time Talantis map in the Arcade game mode,or get your friends together for a splash in custom games. Thanks, everyone, for helping us create this unique experience, and we hope y’all jump into Talantis today!