With Overwatch 2’s third season just around the corner, Blizzard is ready to reveal the game’s newest, and chilliest, map: Antarctic Peninsula. This icy addition is Overwatch 2’s first map solely designed for Control, a game mode first introduced in the original Overwatch that sees two teams of five square up against each other as they attempt to maintain control of a location for a set period of time.
Though this mode is an Overwatch staple–and fans of Mei’s Snowball Offensive might find the arctic setting a bit familiar–Antarctic Peninsula marks an important shift in how Blizzard will be approaching maps as the series continues. In a group interview with GameSpot and other gaming outlets, art director Dion Rogers, level designer Trey Spisak, and lead narrative designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie elaborated on how the game’s map development is evolving, what makes Antarctic Peninsula unique from previous maps, and what lies in store for Overwatch 2’s future.
First and foremost, the Antarctic Peninsula map marks the start of something new for Blizzard: a push toward what Blizzard calls more organic maps. The developers explained that, until recently, Overwatch maps have primarily been designed in a very modular fashion. However, as the team has checked off all the “popular locations” and cities across the globe, Rogers explained, they now want to focus on the “many under-inspected locations” they’ve been “toying around with.”
