This week marks the beginning of the first of three Remix events, one for Anniversary, one for Archives, and one for the Summer Games.
These remixes allow players to unlock every skin normally available during the event, and also allow players to earn six Legendary skins that have been recolored from their original versions. During the event, previous challenges like the Nano Cola Challenge, Ana Bastet Challenge, and Baptiste Reunion Challenge will take place over the course of each week of each event.
Also during each event, the game modes associated with them will appear as brawls in the Arcade.
In a forum post, Community Manager AndyB provided the above details and also said that these versions of the events enable the Overwatch team to spend more time on the upcoming betas. (forums)
On April 7 Activision Blizzard told journalists (Bloomberg) it will convert 1,000 Quality Assurance workers to full-time workers, giving them a minimum wage of $20/hour and are eligible for full benefits. This is both a blessing and curse, so to speak.
The benefits are one of the biggest gains because temporary and contract employees don’t traditionally get these. The less great part, according to sources, is that for those actually living around the Blizzard campus in Irvine, California, where the cost of living is exceedingly high, the wages are barely something that one could consider a living wage. (Twitter)
The Raven QA testers who have been trying to unionize are not part of this deal, with Activision Blizzard saying, “due to our legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act.” (Twitter)
- Blizzard released an article discussing map design in Overwatch 2, talking about the design philosophy of push maps, with one side being themed “warmer” and the other “cooler,” and each new map is built around theming them around their city’s “golden era.” Also mentioned is that covered has been added existing maps to help make up for there being fewer tanks. (PlayOverwatch)
- We got preview of the music from some of the maps in Overwatch 2! Does Circuit Royale have a hint of the James Bond theme to you as well? (Instagram)
- A few OWL players have tested positive for COVID-19 this week, one being Carpe and two unnamed Dallas Fuel team members. Carpe announced it on a now time-lapsed Instagram story, and the Dallas Fuel made their announcement on Twitter, though we don’t know if by “team members” they mean players or staff. Most of us are assuming actual players.
- The Houston Outlaws announced that Jake is now a full-time coach as he continues his attempt at being the first person in the Overwatch League to have every job in the OWL. (Twitter)
- It was a few weeks ago, but NYXL rebranded itself to NY Excelsior so they could make NYXL its own gaming brand that encapsulates their teams across games. (Twitter)
- OWL did a sendoff clip reel to 2CP with highlights from over the years on the map type. I forgot that London Spitfire won the season 1 championship on Volskaya and the Shanghai Dragons won their first game on Horizon Lunar Colony. (YouTube)