Overwatch's Year Of the Dog event has finally come to a close, which means it's time to speculate about what's coming next! Blizzard's character-driven hero shooter keeps itself fresh with seasonal updates full of limited time skins, new game modes and even a meme or two. Unless you're working at Blizzard campus in Anaheim under Jeff Kaplan, there's no way to know exactly the next Overwatch event will be. But, if you put some clues together and stretch your imagination far enough, you can take a fairly educated guess as to the game's next spectacular.
Judging how things ran in 2016 and 2017, I expect the next Overwatch event to take place in April of 2018.
Here are some guesses as to what the next Overwatch event will be.
Uprising 2.0- Last year's Uprising event expanded on the lore by throwing Mercy, Torbjorn, Reinhardt and a newly-minted Tracer into an ugly battle with renegade Null Sector omnics. It was the second Horde mode introduced to Overwatch, and was a huge success. The game developers have made it clear Uprising eventsit will be coming back in some way. Voice lines for Moira and Doomfist were found in the game's code in late 2017, referring to the Uprising event and Blackwatch. Game Director Jeff Kaplan said in an interview with PCGamesN : "I think we have some interesting plans to evolve what we've done in Uprising, but I'm gonna leave that a bit of a surprise right now."
If Uprising comes back, expect it to get some serious changes. Though Kaplan has made it clear he wants new fans to be able to experience last year's event, he also wants seasoned Overwatch veterans to have something new. Last year's Uprising event took place right after Year Of the Rooster for the whole month of April. If Uprising does come back, it will most likely be in April 2018 with a Blackwatch twist. Moira, Genji, McCree and Reaper are the black-ops members of the Overwatch team and there might be a covert mission only they can complete.
April Fools- A less lore-centric approach could be an option for the next Overwatch event. With last year's Anniversary event, Blizzard has proven they can make skins that aren't too serious but still have mass appeal. Why not go crazy with the idea and just have the whole hero roster go loony for a couple of weeks? Switch everyone's abilities: have Hanzo shoot molten lava and Junkrat launch healing beams. My dream event would feature a game mode where you have to find something ridiculous, like Genji's human body parts, Zenyatta's extra arms or D.Va's Doritos. Mashed did a great job of capturing exactly what I want.
Something Unexpected- It's the Overwatch team, they always have something crazy to shock their fans. I hope it's something nobody could have seen coming; an Orisa tea party, a St. Patrick's day extravaganza or a Reaper-inspired emo Karaoke night.
What do you think the next Overwatch event will be? Tell us in the comments.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Steven Asarch is a tech reporter for Newsweek currently based in New York City. In high school, he started stand-up ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
