8 hours ago
Overwatch 2: Map Voting And A New Map Are Coming In Season 17
The map voting screen in Overwatch 2.
There's a major new feature coming to Overwatch 2. As Blizzard promised earlier this year, map voting is coming to the game and it'll be available when Season 17 goes live on June 24. There's also, at last, a brand-new Flashpoint map.
The map voting feature will be in both Quick Play and Competitive – it wouldn't really make sense for Stadium. Here's how it works: once the roles are set, three randomized map options will pop up.
Your vote will add a one in 10 chance to the odds of your preferred map being selected. A "roulette-style roll" will then determine which map the two teams will play on. The more votes a map gets, the more likely it is that's where you'll do battle.
If you don't love any of the maps that pop up in the voting screen, you might be out of luck. Leaver penalties will be in play when voting starts, so if you back out, you might be locked out of playing Quick Play or Competitive for a while.
During the map voting phase, you won't be able to see which specific players picked each map. Battle tags and team chat are also hidden. It's unclear whether you'll still be able to discuss map picks with your teammates in group voice chat.
Along with map voting, there will be a brand-new map in Season 17 of Overwatch 2. It's been a very long time coming, but there will finally be a new Flashpoint map available. Aatlis will be just the third Flashpoint map in the game, and it'll be nice to have anotehr one in the rotation.
Aatlis is set in Morocco. Here's how Blizzard describes it: "From lush gardens to luxury resort spaces, this one is built for tighter fights, cleaner rotations and fast-paced momentum." That sounds pretty good to me.
I don't have much else to say about Aatlis, in large part because I don't know anything else about it at the minute, but here are some screenshots to tide you over until Season 17 of Overwatch 2 arrives next week:
New Overwatch 2 Flashpoint map Aatlis
New Overwatch 2 Flashpoint map Aatlis
New Overwatch 2 Flashpoint map Aatlis
There's a lot more coming in Season 17 of Overwatch 2, so check out my blog for more of what we know so far.
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