With the Overwatch Summer Games back for another year, Lucioball returns in an improved remixed form with updated mechanics and the addition of… multi-ball! Recently we had the chance to speak to Principal Game Designer, Michael Heiberg on the Overwatch team, to talk about the changes and the continued development on seasonal events as Overwatch enters its fifth year.

A snippet.

“Our original Lúcioball arena layouts have always felt like a missed opportunity to me,” Michael Heiberg tells me. “For two reasons: the original arena layout had very few opportunities for Lúcio to use one of his signatures moves -- wall-riding. You could wall-ride along the map edges, but you often needed to go out of your way to take advantage of the walls. Secondly, the gameplay was the same for all three locations.”

“I wanted players to care about which map they were playing on,” Michael adds. “When I was coming up with ideas for the Sydney layout, my mind kept wandering to ‘roos, which is what eventually led to most of the floor being covered with jump zones.”

Our Full Overwatch Summer Games 2020 Interview