Blizzard just launched the Archives 2020 Overwatch event a full month early

If you're stuck in your house due to coronavirus and need a forever game to play, Blizzard's Overwatch has your back with the latest 2.84 update which not only buffs one of the game's best characters, but also brings back the popular Archives event a month earlier than expected.

Blizzard rolled out the version 2.84 update on Thursday, and with it came the return of the Archives event (which usually runs from April into May), along with the many Hero skins and other cosmetics that come attached. The update also features needed bug fixes, balance updates, and the ability to share replays.

Not only do the Archives co-op story missions serve as a nice primer for the upcoming PvE focused Overwatch 2, but it gives players access to skins, highlight intros, emotes, and sprays "inspired by moments from Overwatch's past." Not only are there some new skins to get excited about, but coveted skins from previous Archives events — like Moira's Scientist skin — are now available to purchase with in-game currency.

The Archive events include Overwatch Uprising, which follows Tracer's first mission; Overwatch: Retribution, which recounts a battle between Blackwatch and Talon; and Overwatch: Storm Rising, that sees players fighting Maximilien, an evil businessman that finances Talon. New to this year are weekly challenge missions that will award players with unique new skins, as is customary for most Overwatch events these days. By beating these challenges over the course of the next three weeks, players can unlock skins for Symmetra, Torbjorn, and Mei as well as new icons and sprays.

Archive missions will definitely be the biggest timesink but another notable addition is to share replays with other players in-game. If you want to share, you'll simply have to get the shortcode for your replay and share it either in-game or online. The replay system, in general, has seen some quality-of-life improvements. Players can now pin 10 replays, track recently imported replays, and can even add notes to them.

Of course, Competitive players will care most about the character balancing tweak and will probably be surprised to see that one of the game's most popular characters is being buffed even further. Baptiste can be amazing when used properly, and this patch has reduced his Exo Boost charge time and shortened his regenerative boost cooldown. It's surprising to see Baptiste, an already great character, get these buffs while the like of D.Va, Mei, and Sombra all received increases in the rate or cooldown of their abilities, making for slight nerfs.

The specific changes can all be seen in Blizzard's official patch notes for update 2.84, which also highlights bug fixes and smaller changes like how friend requests will now only be shown to players once per session.

The Inverse Analysis

Archive missions typically drop in April of every year, so it's quite surprising to get it a bit early in March. Still, the reintroduction of this content is appreciated nonetheless. With Overwatch 2's focus being on PvE and story, it's smart for Blizzard to shine a light on the game's elusive narrative, The story of these missions was also spearheaded by Michael Chu, who recently left Blizzard before the launch of Overwatch 2. The update's other additions should be appreciated as well, especially by Baptiste mains.