• News

Overwatch Anniversary Event Includes Petra Deathmatch Map & First Free-For-All Competitive Season

Overwatch is ready to usher in its second anniversary in a big way, especially for fans of free-for-all Deathmatch.

Ozzie Mejia

May 15, 2018 12:50 PM

1

Overwatch is ready to celebrate its two-year anniversary this month. While Blizzard has already announced the start date of this year's anniversary festivities, Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan offered a few more details on Tuesday afternoon regarding what exactly the anniversary would entail. And beyond new anniversary skins, players can look forward to a whole new free-for-all Deathmatch map called Petra.

"Petra is beautiful," Kaplan said during Tuesday's Developer Update video. "There are some really fun gameplay elements to it, as well. For example, there is a mega health pack in the very center of the map in an area that becomes increasingly dangerous as the match goes on. We think you'll find that very fun. There's parts of the map that are great for open, long-range heroes. There's parts of the map that are great for short-ranged heroes. There's a lot of diversity and we think you'll find it super, super fun."

Petra's release will coincide with the first free-for-all competitive Deathmatch season. The season will unfold on Petra and Chateau.

Kaplan also added that the Overwatch community now boasts 40 million players. To help celebrate this and the anniversary, players can log in during the Overwatch Anniversary event and receive a free Legendary Anniversary Loot Box. This will contain one guaranteed Anniversary item, as well as a random item from any previous Overwatch event. Past seasonal items will also be available in any loot box earned over the course of the Overwatch Anniversary event.

For those who have missed any of those aforementioned Overwatch events, look for all of the seasonal brawls and missions to make their return during the Overwatch Anniversary event. As far as more new content goes, players can check out a new batch of Anniversary skins, including eight new Legendary skins.

The Overwatch Anniversary is set to begin on May 22. Also, on another Overwatch note, remember that the Pink Mercy skin is still available through May 21, with all proceeds going to Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?