Blizzard are some busy people. Even while celebrating the Overwatch Anniversary with a special event, they’ve also made the new Horizon Lunar Colony map available on the PC public test region. First there was a teaser video to give a hint to what to expect.
Yep, that was where Winston grew up. He was raised with over genetically-enhanced gorillas in the colony by a team of human scientists. That included the human Dr Harold Winston, from whom the Overwatch hero took his name. When the gorillas decided to rebeal and take over the colony, Winston escaped to Earth. But he wasn’t the only specimen who was never found.
Yep, a fellow specimen named Hammond is also unaccounted for. But there may be more hidden information within the new map. For example, Sombra was teased in the game before she was added to the hero roster in Overwatch.
Horizon Lunar Colony is the fourth assault map. It joins Hanamura, Temple of Anubis and Volskaya Industries. And there’s a mix of high ground around the first and second capture point for attackers and defenders. And one small section of the map also takes place in low gravity, if you want to play around. And potentially interesting if you’re trying to flank.
And although the low gravity is limited. But as it was fun to have as a test, there are plans to introduce a limited time low gravity option in the Arcade mode, and gravity options coming to the Custom Game setup. Which might be interesting for exploring maps, and also to ramp up the fun of Hogball.
In the video Overwatchh Game Director Jeff Kaplan refers to aspects of the Horizon Lunar Colony which refer to the Winston storyline and background.
So it’ll be worth exploring and examing the map in detail to see what secrets can be uncovered.
One of the first things to check out is that the telescope in the Attackers spawn point is interactive. Looking through it reveals Spain and three ‘Potential Landing Sites’ as well as Watchpoint: Gibraltar. Plus most characters have specific voice lines referring to it, listed below:
If you’re playing on the PC, you can access the Horizon Lunar Colony by selecting the Public Test Region on the on the region drop down menu in the Overwatch section of the Blizzard app. There’s no scheduled release date for the map to come to the normal servers on the PC, or the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions.
So in the meantime, here’s a pic of Baby Winston to cheer you up while you wait.
And in case you can’t wait…
Horizon Lunar Colony Telescope Voice Lines:
- Ana: “It’s not bad, but it’s also not Hawaii.”
- D.Va: “Wow! The view is amazing!”
- Genji: “I will never look at Tsukimi the same way”
- Hanzo: “The concerns of my life seem so distant from up here.”
- Junkrat: “It really makes you wonder, don’t you think?” & “I think I can see my trailer down there!”
- Lucio: “I never thought I would see the world like this!”
- McCree: “Really gives you a perspective on the world down there, what it’s all about. Aghh I need a drink.”
- Mei: “Our world IS worth fighting for.”
- Mercy: “It all seems so peaceful from up here.”
- Orisa: “Recording. Efi would want to see this.” & “I wish Efi could be here. Perhaps someday!”
- Pharah: “It all looks so peaceful from up here.”
- Reaper: “The view’s not bad.”
- Reinhardt: “It all looks so SMALL from up here”
- Roadhog: “Well. Okay then.”
- Soldier 76: “Earth. I’ve gone through a lot for you. Hope you appreciate it.”
- Sombra: “That’s something you don’t see every day.”
- Symmetra: sighs “From here it all looks to be so orderly and peaceful.”
- Torbjorn: “Vell the view’s not bad.”
- Tracer: “Wow! I think I understand what Winston felt like now, looking back at the Earth from here.”
- Widowmaker: Laughs “A bit more powerful than my scope.”
- Winston: “The first day or so, we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one earth”
- Zarya: Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и преумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её! A Yuri Gagarin Quote meaning: “Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!”
- Zenyatta: “The damage doesn’t look so bad from up here.”
(h/t Reddit. And in a video:
Hammond:
So we know there’s a second specimen which is unnaccounted for along with Winston. And Hammond is tipped to appear in-game on June 6th.
A message in-game about Hammond refers to a smaller creature and cage. So it’s likely he isn’t a gorilla – and a leak has suggested that he could be a cybernetically-enhanced chimpanzee. Which can drop anchor points to form a barrier
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