Who wouldn’t want to create their own maps in Overwatch ? That might be possible someday.
Overwatch is undoubtedly one of the most successful shooters, but it still has some flaws that particularly annoy fans. Many shooters come with a map editor built in, allowing dedicated players to create their own maps.
By now, Overwatch has a server browser that lets fans set their own rules. Now there has been a question in the forum about when, – and if at all – a map editor is planned.
Jeff Kaplan, the Game Director of Overwatch, responded (as often) quickly to this:
“We are very open to the release of a map editor for Overwatch. But because Overwatch was created with a brand new engine, this is not a small matter or something that could happen soon. We have noted this in our long-term plan and strongly believe in player-created content. But there are still many challenges and it is still a long way before we can make our editor public.”
With this, fans have received an answer, but it likely doesn’t make anyone truly happy. Because when Blizzard says “not anytime soon,” it is a bit further away than “Soon” – whether it will happen in this decade remains to be seen.
How exactly such a map editor could look is also still questionable, as many of the objects used by Blizzard on the maps are unique or a fixed part of the environment. Whether it can simply be “extracted” is doubtful. Some objects also do not have textures on all sides – like houses, as they are never seen from above. It would thus require a lot of post-processing to release at least a “simple” editor.
