'Overwatch' Celebrates Rio Olympics With New Map and Loot

Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch will celebrate the greatest sports competition on Earth by hosting its own special Summer Games event, replete with special prizes for winners.

In an announcement on their official blog, Blizzard announced that in honor of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Overwatch will celebrate during the next three weeks with their own Olympic-themed games.

Players will be able to earn seasonal Loot Boxes with specially themed cosmetic items. These include sprays, emotes, victory poses, character intros, player icons, and special skins. Even the Loot Boxes themselves sport a special Summer Games design. Blizzard is promising at least one specially designed Summer Games loot each time a player buys or earns a Loot Box during the event.

Blizzard has teased what some of these special skins might look like, including Overwatch characters sporting uniforms from their home nations. However, alongside a host of new skins adorned with flags and colors are special, legendary skins which feature such designs as a track-and-field costume for Tracer, a weight-lifting suit for Zarya, and many more.

Overwatch also updated the game with a new game mode called “Lúcioball”. Named after the Brazilian support character Lúcio, the mode is a special 3 v. 3 mode in which players play a custom, soccer-esque, game using Lúcio’s specific set of skills and powers which have been altered for the game. Blizzard even developed a custom Lúcioball stadium called the Estádio das Rãs (Stadium of Frogs).

The company mentions that this only one of the many special events Blizzard has planned for Overwatch. While the company doesn’t elaborate on which future events Overwatch might roll out, either independently or in conjunction with another real-world event, it’s safe to say that specially timed loot and game modes will be a fixture in Overwatch going forward.