This Thursday, Blizzard will finally deliver Doomfist to all players of Overwatch, which includes PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. As of right now, Doomfist has been only playable on the Public Test Realm, (PTR), which is exclusive to the PC. Blizzard has taken their time with Doomfist, who many speculated would have dropped for the game's one-year anniversary back in May, but that didn't happen. On top of that, Blizzard typically takes about two weeks to test a character on the PTR, but with Doomfist, they have taken a little more than three weeks. Clearly, Blizzard wants to make sure their newest character is as balanced as possible, which can stink for players who are dying to play him, but it's great to see a company take the time it needs to make sure a new character doesn't break the game, in terms of balance.
So if you're ready to meteor fist your opponents with Doomfist, the update should be this Thursday at around Noon EST-3PM EST, that's the typically time window for updates to go live. But what's up with that release date you might say? Thursday is a rather odd choice when you consider that Tuesday has always been the day that Blizzard does any big update and not even just for Overwatch. Blizzard typically updates all their games on Tuesday, just ask any World of Warcraft player who had a day off on Tuesday and when they wake up to play, found the server was down, for what might be all day. Nevertheless, Blizzard is delivering Doomfist on a Thursday, what's not known is whether or not other changes will arrive on Tuesday. Changes that have been recently tested on the PTR include updates for Zarya and Reinhardt, which could possibly be ready for Tuesday, as they aren't dramatic changes, but we're not sure exactly why Blizzard is delaying Doomfist two extra days.
Another big update is coming down the road too, the second annual "Summer Games." As any Overwatch fan will tell you, the original Summer Games was the first "event" that Blizzard implemented into Overwatch that gave players new skins, taunts, voice lines, sprays, emotes, and yes, a fun, limited-time game mode. The first summer games coincided with the 2016 Olympic games, hence, Summer Games. Players were treated to skins that were very Olympic-like, with Tracer looking like a speed runner, Lucio looking like a Brazilian Soccer (football) player and Zarya looking like a deadlifting weight trainer. The game mode was called Lucio Ball and was basically Rocket League, with a bunch of Lucio’s running around a small soccer field blasting an oversized soccer ball with his megaphone gun.
Since this is the first time an event will repeat itself, we’re not entirely sure how Blizzard will go about dealing with certain topics, namely skins. Skins for any event are only available to players for purchase, while the event is running. Since this is the first event to repeat, many are left wondering if Blizzard will offer skins from the past event, in addition to new ones. While it’s entirely possible that Blizzard could make those skins from last year available, we can confirm that new “items” are on the way and the best part is that they are coming for characters that didn’t receive the most love last year. Keep in mind; these are listed as items, not skins.
Thanks to some clever folks who data mined the game files on the PTR, we can see Reaper is set to receive two summer games items, again, I say items because that is how the data mine lists it. Items could be emotes, sprays or any other in-game item, but yes, it could mean skin too. Since Reaper didn’t really receive much at all last year, this is a good sign that he was mentioned first. On that list too, was Tracer, who is set to receive one item, as will Torbjorn and Reinhardt. As for characters set to receive two, you can include Mercy, Hanzo, Pharah, and Widowmaker. But there are only three characters that are set to receive three or four items, that being Ana, Sombra, and Orissa. For a full character breakdown, see the list below.
As of right now, the rumored date for the 2017 Summer Games is August 2. Which is the same date as last year, however the second of August falls on a Wednesday this year, not a Tuesday. Which brings me full circle, as we saw with Doomfirst; apparently Blizzard doesn’t mind breaking their routine and will issue an update whenever they want. While it would make sense to see the Summer games drop on Tuesday, August 1, it’s possible that Blizzard will stick to a certain date and not a day of the week, when it comes to making their in-game events more consistent year-to-year. Either way, we should be receiving the in-game event sometime next week, assuming all this data mining is accurate.
Characters to receive in-game “items” during the Summer games are as listed:
- Reaper x2
- Tracer x1
- Torbjorn x1
- Reinhard x1
- Mercy x2
- Hanzo x2
- Pharah x 2
- Widowmaker x2
- Winston x 1
- Bastion x1
- Symmetra x1
- Zenyatta x 1
- Genji x 1
- Roadhog x1
- McCree x 2
- Junkrat x 2
- Zarya x 2
- Soldier 76 x2
- Lucio x2
- D.Va x1
- Mei x1
- Sombra x4
- Ana x3
- Orisa x4 (plus 1, non-event item)
Plus, Eight new Achievement items and one new Summer games player icon.
So what do all of those numbers really mean? We aren’t sure, as I said, items could be anything, but when you see characters like Sombra, Ana and Orissa having 3-4 items, it makes me think they are guaranteed to get a skin, but who knows. All I know is that I really want a chance to nab McCree’s skin from last year with the American flag poncho or whatever that thing is called.
Editors Note: Marked as rumor.
