The Decline Of The Anniversary Event, Part 3

There's a time and there's a place for certain things

Just played a round of legendary death from above underworld and our soldier decides that he wants to get the lore achievement on legendary mode?

Like there's a time and a place my dude, and that's normal mode not legendary.

The Archives events Part 1 - Uprising

Uprising was the first achieves event introduced into Overwatch and was released in 2017. It was also a huge hit. It was introduced some four or five months before I started playing, but just reading through the comments and from my personal memories surrounding the event. I can say for certainty it was a hit.

I'll start it off small. they introduced a series of banger skins for this event, and until this day some of them are still my favourites.

Obviously, on top of the skins and the cosmetics, the mission was released.

This was the introduction video. Unlike the following two events, it didn't have an outro cutscene, just this short one at the start.

The uprising mission story itself, is simply stop a war before it begins. There's an null sector invasion in London that needs tackling before it progresses into something more, and Jack Morrison sends in a small strike team.

Their goal is to gain control of the large artillery guns scattered across kings row and take down their defences so Overwatch can move in and save some prisoners stuck in the factory, aka the final payload location.

There's also a lovely little pre-lude to the mission in the form of a comic. Said comic is also called Uprising and details the finer complications of Overwatch's actions in London.

It shows the complicated nature of the relations between Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes, and the strain Blackwatch was having.

It discusses the politics of Overwatch and highlights how much Overwatch was under fire at that point. It also gives us a look into Tracer and how she handled the start of her first mission as well.

Because, yes, this was Tracer's first ever field mission.

It also just gives us a nice little jewel, and shows us where Tracer got her "the cavalry's here" line.

All in all, the Uprising event was delivered with Grace, lore, cosmetics, and interactive and fun gameplay.

Overwatch 2 could never.

Then a couple of months later they released the 'Honour and Glory' short:

Then another year or so later the 'Shooting Star' short was released:

A couple of months later the 'Reunion' short was released:

The the infamous OW2 trailer 'Zero Hour' was released, casually three years before they were ready to release the thing:

The first Overwatch 2 short 'The Wastelander', was released a astounding three years later, with no filler shorts in between:

Shortly after the 'Kiriko' short was released:

And last but not least, the newest trailer, released in the summer of 2023 is the 'Calling' short:

Fingers crossed there will be more shorts in the future though and it won't be the last one for long lol

Overwatch Animated Shorts Master list!

All the Overwatch Animated shorts in release date chronological order <3

Naturally, the 'cinematic trailer' came out first :) ->

The next trailer that came out was the 'We are Overwatch' short:

The next short was the 'Recall' short:

Quickly following that short, was the 'Alive' short:

Not long after that one either, the 'are you with us' Short was released:

Following that was the 'Dragons' short:

Then not even two weeks later the 'Hero' short was released:

Then a few months later 'The Last Bastion' short was released:

A month of two later the next short, 'Infiltration' was released:

After quickly putting out so many shorts, Blizzard took a break just shy of a year before releasing the 'Rise and Shine' short:

THIS IS SO CUTE AAAAAAAAAAA!! <3

Drawing Overwatch Interactions - Episode 05: "Do Not Lie, Archer"

Added the voice lines again just because. (Turn on sounds!)

Blizzcon 2023 Omg...

First of all here's the video I watched if you want to go watch it yourself, but I'm just gonna outline what I think are the highlights in this post!

First of all, Blizzard actually serving this Blizzcon like?? Woah there, slow down, are you sure you actually want to deliver what the fanbase wants... you've never done that before but slay.

And secondly, I'm late to this cos your girl put off working on a brief deadline for her degree until the last few days and had to draw like a mad woman. So excuse my late reactions to everything haha

ANYWAYS

THE COMP CHANGES?? LIKE SLAY OMG

Let's be honest, even Blizzard knew the 5 - 15 bracket was shit, and now they're finally getting rid of it, and replacing it with this ->

Like are we actually getting ranked on what we do in the match or is this some kind of amazing dream?

As a hard stuck gold/plat support main with an average of 20k heals a match, this is like some kind of blessing from God.

Plus not to mention the rank reset?? Last time I rank reset, aka made a smurf account that I never used, it was two ranks above my main. I'm going to cry literal tears of joy.

Plus, we're getting these bad boys back ->

She looks a little different but it's ok, we still accept her as the placement matches we know and love.

(I am very sassy today apologies, I have borderline carpool tunnel in my main hand and a backache to slay all backaches so I'm feeling slightly unhinged.)

Then they're also tidying up the competitive challenges tab? Like actually slay!

Like look how clean and sexy she looks like omg. Can't wait to actually understand all that information now that it's feasible to read haha

I'm not as hype about these but they still deserve mentioning ->

Tree guns! Oh wait, I mean Emerald guns. Mb. I think they're just like... meh. Like me and my duo have had long and detailed discussions on how we would improve gold guns. We eventually settled on them progressing in rarity and price. We suggested a gun started at bronze and worked it's way up the ranks like you do in competitive, and each rank would be a thousand more expensive. So obviously Bronze for Bronze, Silver for Silver, Gold for Gold, Platinum with like a purple sheen for Platinum, Diamond with a white and blue reflection for Diamond, then either Ruby or Sapphire for Masters and Grand Masters.

If you hadn't figured it out by my grumbling already in this post, but I'm a digital art student in uni, literally studying concept art, and by gods would my lecturers turn their noses up at the green they chose for this promotional ss.

Personally, I would saturate the colour more, it's much too dark. Sure, up close you can see the colour well, but realistically you want to be able to see the colour in game as well, and the green here is much too dark. I would saturate the colour more, but not too much. There's a thin line between it being a distraction or a flex. Next thing I would do is give it a darker sheen so when it catches certain lights it has a muted sparkle. I say darker so that it doesn't cross the distraction line again, because a lighter sheen would defiantly distract a player.

ANYWAY those are just my thoughts on it as someone studying this stuff at uni :)

I'm not a professional and will never be cos I'm never touching the art industry after this course again lol

Next I just wanna briefly look at the two heroes other than Mauga we got a look at.

Which are obviously Venture ->

Who's a dps who digs underneath the ground and launches out to deal dmg to the enemies.

Personally, I think it's a really innovative idea, and a really nice idea lore wise, but realistically I don't think this is going to play well, and I'm sure we're going to see lots of changes to him before and after he's released.

Also that concept art is just chefs kiss. It's so beautiful, with such clean lines and such an understandable concept. The facial expression is so cute and clean as well, and I already love them just from what I can see.

Oh, they are a they/them as well, so they're slaying.

Then there's 'Space Ranger', which is only a code name, and all we can call her so far ->

Again the beautiful concept art is literally making my drool, the lines are clean, it's understandable, conveys exactly what the artist wants.

I also love the unique UI of having the two guns above. It's also really thrilling to get more of a design perspective, for me at least. Even if I'm not going into the art industry (I'm taking a course to become a teacher after I gradate next year) it's still really exciting to be able to see the processes of it all. Now I can't help but imagine what the rest of the heroes concept art looked like when drawn onto the ss like the image above.

She's also a support by the way, so we support mains are being FED.

Next on my little list that I have here, is the hero mastery updates. Which are all for next year, so 2024.

The first point was that we'd be getting D.va, Lucio, Genji, Echo and Mei maps to master. I've 5 stared all the Mercy courses cos she's one of my mains, and my other is D.va sooooo can't wait to spend 20 hours on that haha.

They've also realised that it being solo can be a bit of an obstacle for groups, so they're adding a tower defence 3v3 vs bots mode. Every season the heroes on the roster for the mode will cycle out, as will the special rewards for completing the game mode every season. Basically, they're trying to make it as replayable every season as possible. Even with the heroes and reward cycles, I still have a sneaking suspicion this is going to end up slightly monotonous.

Here's a ss of the tower defence ->

It's not very clear and that's mb, I forgot to ss until too late lol.

Finally, the last big thing that they discussed was the new game mode 'Clash', plus the re-work of the Hanamura 2cp map for this game mode.

They basically described clash as 5cp, and even with this image it took me a while to get my head around it. Disclaimer, I am dyslexic though lol, so you'll probably get it faster than me.

Basically, (from what I understood from the dev's explanation) all five points will be lined up in a row on the map. When the game starts, team blue will posses 2 points and so will team red. Only point C will be available to cap, and it's a race to see who can claim the point first. Whoever claims the point will then push the enemy teams spawn room back a point, and the next point to claim will be either one to the right/left from the middle. The game ends when one team holds on the points, or the time runs out and whoever holds the most points win. The co-streamer I was watching alongside it said it resembled a tft game mode, but since I've never played tft I can't vouch for that.

I actually really like this idea, and it actually does remind me of 2cp quite a lot. It has a very nostalgic OW feeling just to the description.

Moving on, we have the Hanamura re-work, which is last, but not least.

They've adjusted the map in a way that supposedly makes it feel organic and not just a re-work of Hanamura itself. Basically, they've expanded off the main map, left some noticeable features and vibes to the map, and dropped the previous map into the background. It's a very smart way to evolve a map in all honesty.

This map has been designed specifically for Clash and will be called Hanaoko (sorry if I'm butchering that, they didn't write it down anywhere and only said the name).

Normally, I won't be too bothered to write so much about a new map, but bro this is Hanamura! I adore Hanumura, so, so, so much! I miss 2cp and all those maps so badly. It's nice to see them evolving the concept to incorporate those nostalgic elements for OW1 players.

What also interested me was that they talked more about the Hanamura lore. Naturally, there's a lot of it. With the Shimada brothers, the Hashimoto Shimada fight for dominance, and Kiriko with her Yokai gang. They specifically mentioned more lore for those three groups which got my very excited. They also mentioned, and I feel stupid for not noticing this cos it's obvious once it's pointed out), but all the dragons and tigers on the map are symbolic. They represent the struggle between the Shimada (dragons) and Hashimoto (tigers) clans when they're fighting. Like in this photo ->

So, it's official, we are being well and truly fed this Blizzcon. I can't wait for ranked to actually feel rewarding again.

Here's a random Tracer play from OW1 to finish of the post :)

The most darling Rein ever ♥️

SPREAD THE JUNKRAT LOVE <33333

Finally got 5 stars on the first level of Mercy's Hero Mastery... Just 2 more to go

(Also hate the glitch where your gold gun doesn't show up so much!! Makes me so sad cos Mercy's gold gun was my second one 💔)

Why's she being so mean to him? :(

He's just being adorable!

Nothing like making the enemy team rage quit!