Weekly Recall: Nice Ice, Baby

If you feel a chill in the spring air, don't panic: it's just Antarctic Peninsula welcoming you back into its loving, frozen arms. Initially released in 2023, our coolest Control map took a vacation late last year so a team of designers and artists could go full steam ahead on a complete rework.

Now that it's back on live servers in Season 2: Summit, our worldbuilding team would love to take you on a tour of the revamped Antarctic Peninsula, complete with bonus insights into their creative process. Stay warm and watch out for penguins!

Sculpting The Ice

We decided to tackle Antarctic Peninsula for a few reasons. Community sentiment was one of the biggest factors that pushed us towards this rework. The Overwatch community is never shy with feedback (we love that!) and your constructive criticism tended to hit the same few points.

Folks felt the map was overly dark and monotonous, bordered on claustrophobic, and that individual points lacked identity and readability. That's not fun, so we agreed it needed another look. Map voting data also led us to prioritize Antarctic Peninsula, showing it was the least-picked map by a large margin.

Armed with a fresh perspective, we dove into this revamp looking to push artistic boundaries and give each point its own individual identity, while also simplifying map layouts. Reworking a Control map is a satisfying but complex process. In a way, we're redesigning three smaller maps that need to be cohesive while also remaining individually recognizable. It's a puzzle our team gets to solve together.

Level designers normally take the lead on map reworks; they're the ones who redesign the physical structure of a map. Their major task here was streamlining pathways and flank routes while opening up control points to allow for larger team fights, especially in "cramped" areas like the former Sub-Levels map.

It might sound cliche, but map reworks really are a marriage of disciplines. New concepts from artists inspire level designers to dream bigger, while new and updated layouts from design give artists greater canvases to work with. It goes back and forth between artists and level designers until we have enough to show the rest of Team 4, who are then invited to playtest and give their feedback.

At this point, other teams normally get invited to the mix. Tech art, VFX, and sound design get involved with most map reworks, but we really put them to work on this one. We'd say we're sorry, but they loved it...especially the part where they got to help us build a brand-new environmental hazard. Our in-house artists and external art collaborators are with them at every step. For Antarctic Peninsula, they focused on updating the overall color scheme with rich, warm colors to add vibrance and life.

Not So Blue

While we're always aiming to improve overall clarity in any rework, we also try to integrate more joy and wonder into map makeovers. We want maps to look and feel different so you can see them with fresh eyes and enjoy them in a new way. Antarctic Peninsula originally skewed toward monotone as far as color and aesthetics were concerned, so we decided to brighten those muted colors up to eleven. On a story level, we leaned into the aesthetic of a once-thriving scientific research station to give it more life. Each point got specific updates, too.

Drilling Rig

Have you ever been playing Overwatch with your friends and someone asks, "hey, which point is this? The one with the thing?" when you load into a Control map? Well, we got tired of answering that question about Point A on Antarctic Peninsula, so we made the largest drill asset in Overwatch history to hopefully make it obvious what this zone is all about. Really, it's the biggest one we got!

As far as layout and pathways are concerned, Drilling Rig has the fewest changes, since most of our efforts were focused on expanding the capture point. Most notable is that suspiciously team-fight-sized back room. But we gave this point a massive artistic makeover inspired by real-life Arctic research sites, rich with oranges and yellows for better contrast against blue and white ice.

Icebreaker

Sure, there's an entire ship sticking out of the ice, but we found that this point still lacked a solid identity. We found many people didn't realize that they were fighting on a boat at all! This point felt frozen in time...how could we inject some life into a static scene?

The answer was penguins. Lots of penguins. The Overwatch community loved the penguin nests tucked into this point's spawn rooms, so we opted to make penguins the focus of Icebreaker. Groups of penguins now dive into the water as the game kicks off and if you look closely, you can spot the little guys in new places across this point (and others)! This doubles as confirmation that you're playing above the water on what is clearly a shipwreck.

Fun fact: since every animation asset affects performance, we strategically kept the penguins moving and grooving in the background or made them pocket-sized so they wouldn't drop your FPS by being too cute.

Don't worry, we made gameplay changes to Icebreaker, too. Pathways to the capture point are now easily identifiable, and we widened or eliminated a few problematic choke points. Pathways within the ship are now color-coded for easier callouts or navigation: one side is mostly green while the other is predominantly blue. You'll notice this on other points as well, but we peppered in yellow decor like pipes and trim to show the fastest way to the capture area.

Anomaly

Anomaly-the point formerly known as Sub-Levels-got the most attention during this rework. Previously, it was a dark ice cave with far too many pathways that encouraged teams to splinter in all directions. Beyond that, it had no identifiable features other than apparently being really, really unliked.

To fix that, we gave it a story as well as a facelift. The new centerpiece of this point is what we call the Anomaly, a prototype weather control device that's gone on the fritz due to years of disrepair. The machine runs the full vertical length of the capture point and includes our first "freezing" environmental hazard. Fly too high and you'll get frostbite!

We also drastically changed the overall look of this area to make it feel more alive. Just like Drilling Rig, we brought in orange accents to add warmth and scattered more yellow beacons to direct you to the capture point. Our lighting experts beamed sunlight through the blue ice to create a shimmering, ethereal feel.

On a gameplay level, we entirely got rid of the upper room that seemed to call to flankers and snipers like a siren song. The new pathways to the capture point are clear-cut to encourage your team to stick together. In order to retain the verticality people enjoyed on Sub-Levels, we added several drill holes to clamber through or aim from.

Thanks for joining us on this chilly tour! Our team would love to hear more about which maps you'd like to see get a similar update, no holds barred. Data is valuable to us, but nothing beats direct feedback from the Overwatch community. That's all from us!

(Okay, just one more thing: The penguins are innocent. Please stop shooting at them.)