Jeff Kaplan Details Storm Rising Mission in Overwatch Developer Update

Jeff Kaplan explained Storm Rising, the mission in the latest Overwatch Archives event, in a developer update released Tuesday addressing story, design and more.

Per Kaplan, Storm Rising takes place six years before the start of Overwatch the game and features Winston, Tracer, Genji and Mercy. The heroes are led remotely by their commander, Sojourn, whose voice can be heard in-game.

The heroes head to Havana, a new map split into a streets area, the Don Rumbotico rum factory and a sea fort. They plan to infiltrate a Talon safe house and hunt down Maximilien, a font of wealth for Talon, then use him to get to Doomfist.

Kaplan claims the outro of Storm Rising will feature some big surprises that will lead to more fan speculation.

While many Talon enemies from last year’s Archives event return in Storm Rising, some of them have been tweaked. Kaplan describes last year’s heavy assault unit as unpredictable and tough, leading the team to nerf his strength and add a more obvious telegraph to his attack.

Also returning from previous Archives events are each event’s game modes, both in story and all heroes modes.

Kaplan states the storm concept in Storm Rising came out of an earlier concept for a sand storm on Temple of Anubis.

Storm Rising comes with eight achievements, each with a corresponding reward to unlock. The event features six legendary skins and three epic skins, and will run through May 6.

Photo courtesy of Blizzard