New Overwatch 2 Maps, Mechanics, Abilities Revealed

Blizzard has shown off an Overwatch 2 behind-the-scenes featurette and, as part of that, given fans a glimpse at new additions and improvements being made for the sequel. During the flurry of BlizzConline 2021 announcements, Blizzard showed a behind-the-scenes featurette video for Overwatch 2, which revealed new details about the game’s locations, playable heroes, and enemies.

In the presentation, we get our first look at two locations in the upcoming multiplayer-focused hero shooter: Rome and New York City. The former will be the setting for one of the maps for Push mode, one of the new additions in Overwatch 2. The Overwatch version of Rome was described as being created to reflect a romanticized notion of the location, especially through its architecture. It features the colosseum and the grand hills as a backdrop. New York, meanwhile, was described as being “authentic” but with an Overwatch spin. It has pizza places and small shops that evoke the Village. “It feels like something you haven’t seen in other games before because it is uniquely Overwatch,” a dev said.

Unlike its predecessor, Overwatch 2 will have both permanent PvP and PvE modes. In PvE, you’ll fight computer-controlled enemies, and the new featurette reveals what some of them will look like, such as Null Sector’s Stalker and Breacher. The featurette also provides more context for how progression, story and hero missions, and hero customization will work in Overwatch 2’s PvE. In this mode, you’ll have the flexibility to customize abilities to tweak them to your liking.

Changes To PvP

On the subject of Overwatch 2’s PvP, Blizzard said it was upgrading how combat will feel, to the point that the experience should feel like a pretty big departure from what’s it’s like to currently play in Overwatch. Weapon feel was particularly focused on, with animation and sounds updated to better focus on enhancing the way that combat looks, sounds, and feels.

Role passives are a big new gameplay addition–these are passive attributes based on class. Tanks, for instance, will have resistance to knockback. Tanks, as a whole, will undergo a big shift. The class will now be toe-to-toe brawlers instead of characters that stand back and protect. For example, Reinhardt will be able to use two Firestrikes, steer his charge, and cancel it.

Sojourn, a new hero coming for Overwatch 2, was also briefly shown. She, according to Blizzard, was built around the railgun, a classic weapon in the first-person shooter.

Hero Missions

One big new feature for Overwatch 2 is Hero Missions, which are co-op, PvE experiences where players can level up heroes and progress their development. In Hero Missions, players will be asked to do things like gather resources to keep them safe, while enemy units are trying to take you out.

According to Blizzard, it is aiming to make hundreds of hero missions with a variety of enemy units, bosses, and new spaces that will be added to existing maps. King’s Row, for example, now has a gate that opens and lets players move into a new area. This also means the payload can take new routes.

Weather Effects

On the environmental side, weather effects have been added. Dynamically, sandstorms, blizzards, and other effects can come into play. There are also shifts in time of day. This will have a dramatic improvement in how cinematic an Overwatch PvE experience becomes.

How Progression Will Work

Everything will feed into progression and talents, further developing individual characters. Talents allow heroes to be played in various different ways, depending on the skill tree that a player picks. Different paths will result in noticeable changes in how characters feel and play. Soldier 76 was shown moving his healing field, while Mercy launched missiles from her healing beam. The talent trees add a layer of RPG mechanics to Overwatch.

Talent trees will be a part of PvE, changing up how you fight in order to take on the diverse assortment of enemy types. One of these is the aforementioned Breacher, which is a walking bomb. Slicers, meanwhile are described as deadly chicken-like enemies that quickly move around. The Polar is a tall, elegant, creature that makes things a bit spookier–much like the Witch in Left 4 Dead. Elite units such as the Elite Omnic Grunt is way more powerful than the usual type and will have different behavior, such as crawling towards you when downed.

Enemies also have improved reactions to taking damage, so that they’re more readable. You can shoot off parts of Null Sector killing machines, and there are even “chain hit reactions” so enemies that take damage that are positioned close to others will impact them.

Updated Character Models

Additionally, the featurette revealed what McCree, Reaper, Widowmaker, and Pharah would look like in Overwatch 2. The former has a longer beard and has a good balance of the tech-aesthetic and the classic cowboy vibe. Pharah meanwhile, has had her visor updated; it is a little more transparent, which means her emotions are more visible. Reaper’s mask is completely silver, instead of bone white. Widowmaker has become more cyberpunk-y, giving her a futuristic femme fatale vibe.

Telling A Story

Story is a major pillar for Overwatch 2. After reuniting the team in Zero Hour, there’s a new Omnic uprising. Overwatch 2 explores who is behind the uprising, how widespread it is, and what the threat truly entails. There are in-game cinematic intros and outros for all story missions, and the narrative will be integrated into the overall game (unlike the original Overwatch, where the story was primarily told outside of the game via animated trailers). Heroes will have in-game dialogue, NPCs will be present, there are in-mission events, and more.

Now Playing: Overwatch 2 New Maps: New York City And Rome | Blizzconline 2021

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

WandaVision: So Who Is Kathryn Hahn Actually Playing?

In WandaVision Episode 7, we learned a shocking (or not-so-shocking, depending on how deeply embroiled in fan theories you’ve been since the show’s premiere) truth about Kathryn Hahn’s Agnes. Surprise! She’s actually been Agatha Harkness all along, and she even gets her very own theme song to prove it.

But, like many things in WandaVision, this reveal only served to raise more questions than it answered–namely: Who the hell is Agatha Harkness and why does she matter in Wanda’s story? And naturally, while this is still very much a mystery for the MCU, we can look to Agatha’s bizarre comic book history for clues.

Agatha Harkness was first introduced in Fantastic Four #94 back in 1970, but before you break out the red string and start connecting dots on your MCU F4 conspiracy walls just yet, know that her role with the first family of Marvel was a little odd. Rather than existing as a villain for anyone in the Richards family, Agatha was a governess–a fancy nanny–to Reed and Sue’s son, Franklin. Franklin is his own extremely bizarre can of worms, so don’t worry too much about him just yet. The long and the short of those early stories was that Agatha was basically a witchy, more dour version of Mary Poppins. She saved the Fantastic Four a handful of times, and always seemed able to out-smart or out-maneuver their superpowers, despite being a frail looking old lady.

It was revealed that, of course, she was anything but a normal old lady–she was actually an immortal witch with roots going back to ancient times. She was even among the witches who settled in Salem, Massachusetts back in the 17th century, where she survived the witch trials.

Agatha spent a substantial amount of the ’70s jumping around different Marvel titles, assisting in the background with her powerful magic until she eventually came in contact with Wanda Maximoff, who at the time had magic-based powers rather than a mutation. Agatha began tutoring Wanda in witchcraft to help better hone her abilities and eventually even “helped” Wanda and Vision get pregnant with Billy and Tommy 1.0 (for more on that, check out our breakdown of what’s going on with the twins).

Unfortunately, the magic she worked to allow a human and a synthezoid to conceive had a bit of a price and it was revealed that the babies were actually “soul fragments” of a demon that Agatha had repurposed. The end result was, uh, baby arms, a lot of angst, and a Marvel universe without a Billy or Tommy for a while (they were eventually reborn demon-free, though, so don’t worry.)

This is where things start to get a little more bizarre. Rather than ever coming clean about her soul fragment mess, Agatha opted to simply wipe Wanda’s memory of her children and continue on her merry way. This worked for a given amount of time–memory wipes were, and in many cases still are, a very common part of most superhero stories, especially after writers have painted themselves into a bit of a corner–but years later, the bill had to be paid. This came through one of Wanda’s more catastrophic breakdowns (no, not House of M), in the Chaos arc of Avengers: Disassembled, a crossover story that ran in the early ’00s.

Avengers #503
Avengers #503

During Disassembled, Wanda inadvertently had her memory of her children jogged which set of a series of deeply unfortunate events, resulting in the temporary deaths of several Avengers and the eventual confrontation between Agatha and a troubled Wanda. Apparently–though it never actually happens on the page–Wanda murdered Agatha in cold blood when she learned the truth of Agatha’s schemes, such as they were.

The reality of the situation is that Agatha’s motives were never explicitly laid out. She was eventually resurrected, but dropped further into the background, escaping to a life on Wundagore Mountain mostly away from the hustle and bustle of the superheroic world.

Following her debut on WandaVision, Agatha’s place in the live-action MCU is even more puzzling. Though she has never been the warmest or the most overtly loving character in Marvel history, she’s never been a flat out villain, which is what the WandaVision “Agatha All Along” theme song seems to suggest of her live-action counterpart. This could just be a simple case of the MCU making changes and updates to characters to better fit the story in a new medium–it definitely wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened and it most definitely won’t be the last. MCU Agatha might just be an evil person, full stop.

Or, there could be something else at play here. Even though Episode 7 laid out many of Agatha’s manipulations over the season, it only answered the “how,” rather than the “why.” We still have no idea why Agatha seems to be puppeteering Westview, what she hopes to gain, or why she’s targeting Wanda in the way she seems to be. If it’s a simple game of two witches trying to one-up one another, like some sort of superheroic spin on The Craft, wouldn’t it have been much easier to leave Vision out of it? And if Agatha really is powerful enough to out-magic Wanda, why all the Westview pageantry?

Of course, we also don’t know what’s going on with the twins now, either, which seems significant. Though Agatha’s drive behind allowing Wanda to conceive in the comics was misguided but ultimately altruistic, in the MCU it could be entirely villainous. Agatha could be working toward–or working for–someone who needs that sort of “soul fragment” style manifestation or power to enter the MCU’s main reality–someone like Mephisto, perhaps, or any number of the multiversal “demonic” entities the Marvel universe has to offer. After all, Doctor Strange villain Dormammu is still out there, in theory, and who knows what sort of issues Endgame’s “time heist” causes on his Infinity Stone-constructed prison.

Alternatively, MCU Agatha really could just be an evil person who is strictly in it for herself. Sometimes comic book villains don’t have complicated schemes for world domination; sometimes they just want to prove that they’re the best at what they do–and if you’re a witch, that could very easily mean making a public show of throwing down with someone like Wanda Maximoff.

With only two episodes of WandaVision remaining, definitive answers are hopefully coming soon.

James Gunn Had To Fight To Cast One Of Our Favorite Guardians Of The Galaxy

It’s hard to imagine the Guardians of the Galaxy films without Drax the Destroyer, and it’s even harder to imagine anyone other than Dave Bautista bringing the ultra-literal strongman to life, but it turns out that almost didn’t happen.

Director James Gunn is more active on Twitter than ever, offering fans of his work almost daily insight into his projects, and he’ll often answer fan questions with surprising candor and transparency. He took a moment off of shooting Peacemaker today to answer a few incoming queries.

“What’s a decision you had to fight tooth and nail for on a movie?” one fan asked. “Like looking back you still wonder why did the studio fight so hard against it?”

“I’d say hiring Dave Bautista on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1,” Gunn replied. “The first thing Kevin Feige told me after seeing the first cut is how right I was about him.”

The whole movie was a long shot, the first time since Iron Man that fans looked at a Marvel Studios film and collectively wondered if the Marvel magic was strong enough to make such an obscure team work. Now, the whole crew, including Bautista‘s quirky portrayal of Drax, are MCU stalwarts who featured heavily into the last two Avengers films and have a third standalone Guardians film on the way.

Gunn answered a few other questions, too. The hardest movie Gunn ever made was Super, the 2010 superhero-themed thriller starring Rainn Wilson and Elliot Page. Gunn described the experience as “grinding, hellish, uncomfortable days, averaging over 40 camera setups a day with one camera–one day we did 54,” he said, which is all thanks in part to the movie’s comparatively tiny $3 million budget. For contrast, Gunn said, big movies sometimes don’t even do ten camera setups. “It felt like sprinting for five weeks.”

Talking about his latest film, the upcoming DC film The Suicide Squad, Gunn confirmed that it has the most practical effects he’s ever done in a movie. How many? “Times five,” Gunn said. The Suicide Squad is complete and currently scheduled to hit theaters on August 6, 2021. The Peacemaker standalone show, starring John Cena, hits HBO Max in January 2022.

Now Playing: James Gunn Rehired As Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 Director – GameSpot Universe News Update

The Snyder Cut’s Martian Manhunter Revealed

Martian Manhunter is one of several new characters appearing in Zack Snyder’s Justice League who wasn’t in the original theatrical release. Thanks to DC Comics, we now have a better idea of what actor Harry Lennix will actually look like as J’onn J’onzz.

That tease comes in the form of a new variant cover to March’s Justice League #59, drawn by DC’s Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee. The cover suggests a fairly comic book-faithful approach to Martian Manhunter, though one that emphasizes his gangly Martian form rather than his more rounded and muscular superhero look.

Art by Jim Lee. (Image Credit: DC)
Art by Jim Lee. (Image Credit: DC)

Lee and fellow DC artists Lee Bermejo (Batman: Damned) and Liam Sharp (The Green Lantern) are all drawing variant covers for Justice League #59, with the full team roster (and Darkseid!) divided among the three covers. DC is also offering black and white versions of these covers. You can check out all six covers in the slideshow gallery below:

[widget path=”global/article/imagegallery” parameters=”albumSlug=the-snyder-cuts-martian-manhunter-revealed-in-justice-league-comic-covers&captions=true”]

Lennix previously appeared in 2013’s Man of Steel and 2016’s Batman v Superman as Lt. General Calvin Swanwick, though we now know Swanwick is actually a disguised Martian Manhunter. Even Lennix himself didn’t know the truth behind his character until he was approached to reprise his role in Justice League. At the time, Lennix’s schedule didn’t allow him to return, but he’s since filmed new scenes for Snyder’s revamped version of the film.

Lennix joins other actors like Jared Leto and Joe Manganiello in filming new material for The Snyder Cut. We recently got a taste of how Leto’s Joker factors into the plot of the movie, and he’s quite a bit different from the version seen in 2016’s Suicide Squad.

Justice League #59 will hit stores on March 16, two days before Zack Snyder’s Justice League arrives in theaters and on HBO Max. That issue is part of DC’s Infinite Frontier relaunch and marks the beginning of writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist David Marquez’s run on the title. Bendis and Marquez will be shaking things up quite a bit for the League, including adding Black Adam, Hippolyta and Naomi to the roster. But despite current rumors, DC is not renaming Black Adam “Shazadam.”

[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/2021/02/14/zack-snyders-justice-league-trailer-breakdown-will-batman-and-joker-be-allies”]

[poilib element=”accentDivider”]

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

How Diablo 4’s Rogue Class, PvP, And Open World Work

With BlizzConline (aka BlizzCon 2021) underway, we got several new details about Diablo 4. During a presentation, Blizzard revealed the new Rogue class, outlined how PvP works, and teased new elements of its open world design. Here, we summarize everything we learned–you can also watch the entire presentation below.

Rogue Class Breakdown

Rogue is a dexterity-based class that can use bows and crossbows for ranged attacks, and swords and daggers for melee attacks. The class relies on mobility and striking fast, but also has a diverse skillset with abilities you can mix and match to great effect. From what we can glean, Rogues have skills like a dashing ability, flurry slashes, and an aerial attack that showers arrows down for AOE damage.

Rogues have three specializations. One is called Combo Points, which seem to rely on a sequence of timing-based attacks that stack damage–director Luis Barriga likened it to a sort of rhythm game. The second is called Shadow Realm, which puts you into temporary stealth to land attacks unharmed while in the middle of combat. Lastly, Exploit Weakness is a reaction-based specialization where an icon will pop up on an enemy and you have to time a counter to do extra damage. Players don’t have to pick one specialization and can combine abilities to create their own builds and playstyles.

As a Rogue, you can also temporary attach elemental properties (frost, shadow, and poison) to your attacks in what’s called the imbue system. Imbuing extends to all of the Rogues attacks and skills as well. These can also work in conjuction with other players–for example, frost damage eventually freezes enemies, and Rogues that imbue frost can freeze faster with a Sorcerer’s blizzard spells.

How Diablo 4’s PvP Works

Player-versus-player is back in Diablo 4, but there weren’t many details when it was first announced. Now we know how it works.

There are specific areas in Sanctuary’s open world called Field of Hatred where PvP gets enabled and players can attack each other. You’ll face strong AI-controlled enemies in these areas to collect shards of hatred, but you need to purify them in order to exchange them for unique gear.

To purify shards of hatred, you need to take them to a certain part of the zone and survive through waves of enemies for a certain amount of time. However, other players around the zone will be alerted to your presence and can pull up to fight you and take the shards for themselves. It’s kind of like the Dark Zone in The Division.

As a callback to Diablo 2’s PvP, defeating actual players will reward you with their ears. For now, it’s just planned to be a collectible for the battles you win, but may turn into a form of currency later down the line.

Strongholds And Mounts In The Open World

We knew that Diablo 4’s version of Sanctuary was going to be one continuous open world with public events happening sporadically. Now we know there will also be a thing called Strongholds, which are enemy camps that you can raid and clear out to take for yourself. They can turn into hub areas with shops.

We saw a bit of the horse mount in previous gameplay, but Blizzard discussed how mounts work. They help you travel faster, but are not an element of combat. You can do special attacks while unmounting, but that’s all. Getting hit while riding your horse will cause you to unmount. Various mounts will be unlockable throughout the game.

In a previous developer update, Blizzard went into greater detail on the design of Sanctuary this time around, so be sure to read up on how Diablo 4’s open world works.

Additional Diablo 4 Details

For those unfamiliar, Diablo 4 is the next entry in the iconic action-RPG franchise that’s coming to PC, Xbox platforms, and PlayStation 4. Catch up on everything we know about Diablo 4 in addition to the latest BlizzCon reveals. There is no release date yet, but Activision previously stated that Diablo 4 will not come out in 2021.

More On BlizzCon 2021

For more on all the news on Blizzard’s games, be sure to check out all our stories of what’s been revealed and announced at BlizzCon 2021, including what’s coming to Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft Classic’s addition of Burning Crusade, Shadowlands’ Chains of Domination update, and the Diablo 2: Resurrected remaster.

Now Playing: Diablo IV Rogue Breakdown and Open World Features | Blizzcon 2021

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

WoW Producer Hopes Games Can Help People Come Together Amid Political Divisiveness And COVID-19

World of Warcraft executive producer John Hight believes in the power of video games to help unite people and ease the divisions in the world amid a time of great unrest. He also stressed that Blizzard has a responsibility to make WoW the best possible social network it can be to help people stay in touch and communicate amidst the global pandemic.

Speaking to GameSpot at BlizzConline, the Blizzard veteran said he believes video games can be a great force for good during this challenging time.

“Aside from the pandemic, all the other stuff that’s going on in the world and all the divisiveness … I really hope that things like games can get us to realize, ‘Hey we have a lot in common,'” Hight said. “That the stuff we’re getting all spun up about is just that–it’s all kind of in our heads. If you remove the physical barriers and we’re all just in this world doing things together, I think we start to realize the commonalities [we share].”

Video games overall are seeing an uptick in players amid the COVID-19 pandemic as people stay home to stay healthy and safe. WoW is one of the games people are turning to, and Hight remarked that he feels a responsibility to help make WoW the best possible social experience that it can be so people can have a good time and stay in touch with friends when they can’t or might not want to travel.

“We have a big responsibility right now. If you can’t even get out and see your family or go cross country to see a friend … part of your normal life is interaction with other people,” he said. “WoW provides you with a way–games in general provide you with a way–to at least interact. To be able chat to with each other, to be able to to play together.”

GameSpot will have much more from our interview with the Blizzard developers soon, so keep checking back for more.

Next up for WoW Classic is the Burning Crusade expansion, which launches later this year on PC. For more on what we know so far, check out GameSpot’s breakdown of all the key Burning Crusade details.

You can also check out some of the top BlizzConline stories below, as well as our roundup of all the big BlizzConline news:

Now Playing: World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade Reveal Trailer | BlizzCon 2021

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

WoW Classic’s Success “Surprised” Blizzard, Dev Thought It Would Only Appeal To Core Fans

When Blizzard announced World of Warcraft Classic, the developer had no idea it would become the hit that it is now. The developer thought bringing back the OG WoW would be something appealing to hardcore fans but not many more than that. As it turned out, that wasn’t the case, and the game is now gigantic, with an expansion, The Burning Crusade, on the way this year.

Executive producer John Hight told GameSpot at BlizzConline that the community for WoW Classic is “as large” as the modern WoW community, but he declined to share any further details about specific numbers when pressed. Still, what’s clear is WoW Classic is a huge hit, and it’s changed how Blizzard as a studio approaches its ongoing development and support.

“It certainly surprised us. When we put out Classic, we weren’t sure is this going to be a big deal or not. We kind of thought, ‘Our core fans are really going to love this, so let’s do this for them.’ And then, no, it became a whole big community of WoW players. As large as our modern WoW community. That surprised us,” Hight said. “We realized, ‘Oh gosh we have to support two communities. How do we do that?'”

“And so, I think part of that is adapting to that … we have a dedicated team specifically for Classic but also the main Warcraft team is responsible for supporting Classic,” he said. “It’s fun in a way because two sets of content we have out there and keep people entertained. I’m really glad it’s part of your WoW subscription. We have people that play both games.”

Asked to clarify the “as large” comment, Hight declined to give any specific figures, but he said confidently that Blizzard stands alone in the MMO community thanks to Classic.

“Suffice it to say, I believe we probably now hold the record for the two biggest MMOs on the planet Earth. So it’s a significant community. Much bigger than we thought it was going to be,” he said.

Hight acknowledged that there is variation by region between player population for WoW Classic and modern WoW, pointing out that the player base in China is much bigger than Blizzard believed. He said Blizzard believes WoW Classic would have similar player numbers to modern WoW in China, but the game has done better at appealing to subscribers there and also bringing in new players who never played WoW and want the Classic experience.

GameSpot will have much more from our interview with the Blizzard developers soon, so keep checking back for more.

Next up for WoW Classic is the Burning Crusade expansion, which launches later this year on PC. For more on what we know so far, check out GameSpot’s breakdown of all the key Burning Crusade details.

In the meantime, you can check out some of the top BlizzConline stories below, as well as our roundup of all the big BlizzConline news:

Now Playing: World of Warcraft Classic: Burning Crusade Full Presentation | BlizzCon 2021

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Ms. Marvel Casts Kamala’s Frenemy Zoe Zimmer

Ms. Marvel, as well as her friends and enemies, are relative unknowns compared to names like Iron Man and the Hulk, but that’s set to change later this year when Ms. Marvel debuts on Disney+. Ms. Marvel is currently in and has now added a new cast member: actor Laurel Marsden will play Zoe Zimmer on the show, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter.

Marsden is a relative newcomer with a short horror film called Contempt and a show from Quibi (RIP) called Survive on her resume. Mardsen’s character is a frenemy of sorts to protagonist Kamala Khan in the comics–a tall, blonde, popular girl who bullies Kamala and her friends. She ends up being the first person Kamala saves after the Terregenesis event that gives Kamala her powers, though, and the two become friends.

Ms. Marvel stars Iman Vellani as teenage hero Kamala Khan, with Bisha K. Ali acting as head writer. Directors on Ms. Marvel include Bad Boys For Life directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, as well as Academy Award-winning documentarian Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Meera Menon, who has directed episodes from a whole host of different shows including The Punisher, Titans, The Walking Dead, and more. Ms. Marvel is expected to join Marvel Studios’ slate of Disney+ shows, which began with last month with WandaVision, in late 2021.

Mortal Kombat Movie Side By Side Comparison (2021 vs 1995)

The new Mortal Kombat movie got its first official trailer, and it’s everything the fans could want. Now that we’ve gotten our first look, it’s the perfect time to do a side by side comparison of the old and new movies. Let’s take a look at how all the classic MK characters compare, including Sub-Zero, Raiden, Sonya Blade, Liu Kang, Scorpion, Shang Tsung, Kano, and Goro.