Overwatch’s PTR Gets New “Horizon Lunar Colony” Map, Buffs For Reaper And McCree

Blizzard is working on a new Overwatch patch and its contents are now available to try out on the Public Test Region. Check out the new “Horizon Lunar Colony” map, as well as notes on Reaper and McCree buffs from the game’s official blog.

Horizon Lunar Colony is an Assault map set in a scientific base on the moon. Built as a first step towards humanity’s renewed exploration of space, the colony’s goal was to examine the effects of prolonged extraterrestrial habitation—on human and ape alike. The scientists’ research proved incredibly promising…until, suddenly, all contact and communications with the base were lost.
Now, many years later, attacking and defending teams must return to the moon and battle for control of the colony’s facilities, all while they discover clues as to the fate of its previous inhabitants.

Here’s more from the patch notes for the PTR’s latest update:

New Assault Map: Horizon Lunar Colony

Built as a first step towards humanity’s renewed exploration of space, the Horizon Lunar Colony’s goal was to examine the effects of prolonged extraterrestrial habitation—on human and ape alike. The scientists’ research proved incredibly promising…until, suddenly, all contact and communications with the base were lost.

New Legendary Skins

• Oni Genji and Officer D.Va have been added to classic loot boxes

Custom Games and Game Browser

• Player gravity and projectile gravity can now be modified
• Knockback magnitude can now be modified on any weapons or abilities that have a knockback effect
• Jump height can now be modified

Hero Updates

McCree

• Deadeye
  • Targets now begin locking on after 0.2 seconds, instead of 0.8 seconds
  • Damage accumulated over the first 1.0 seconds increased from 20 to 80 (damage per second after the first 1.0 seconds is unchanged)

Developer Comment: McCree’s ultimate can deal a lot of damage if it has a lot of time to build up, but it was often too difficult to get even a small amount of damage out before being stopped or killed. These changes make it more flexible and powerful.

Reaper

• The Reaping (Passive)
  • Removed health orbs
  • Now regains 20% of all damage done to heroes as health

Developer Comment: Reaper’s old healing passive was useful if you could kill a bunch of enemies in a row. But since enemies needed to be dead for it to work, it wasn’t very helpful unless the situation was already in your favor. His new passive lets him get immediate benefit from it, especially when fighting Tank heroes, which tend to be larger targets that deal lower damage.

 

Roadhog

• Head hitbox size reduced by 20%

• Scrap Gun
  • Bullet damage decreased by 33%
  • Fire rate increased by 30%
  • Clip size increased from 4 to 5

Developer Comment: Roadhog’s head was abnormally large compared to similarly-sized characters, so we’re reducing its size to increase his survivability. The Scrap Gun changes reduce the power of his hook combo and alternate fire burst damage potential while still keeping his DPS roughly the same.

Overwatch is available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.