Overwatch: Datamined Audio Teases Moon Map Following Blizzard’s Uprising Event

What’s next after the Overwatch Uprising event ends today? A new moon map and possibly a trip to Winston’s home planet.

It’s been a fun few weeks atOverwatch with the Uprising event, which is set to culminate today, May 1. If you’ve spent many an hour toiling through the Null Sector-filled King’s Row map—and went home crying, like in the case of this writer, who was only able to unlock Mercy’s Combat Medic Ziegler among the many exciting Uprising skins and emotes—then you’re probably already excited for the next huge patch Overwatch has in store for us.

Inquisitrpreviously reported that Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan has confirmed three new maps for release this year. These three maps are full, standard maps to be found in Quick Play and Competitive, and will release alongside three non-standard maps.

Since Overwatch’s release in May last year, we have already seen two new standard maps added to the game: Eichenwalde in Germany, which was added to the game in September 2016; and Oasis in Iraq, last January 2017.

What could be the next three maps? Well, they’re almost here, as Kaplan confirmed they’re already past the alpha stage.

We currently have 3 maps in development, all past the initial playtesting phase that are ‘standard’ maps (QP/Comp). While something could always change, all 3 of those are looking likely for a release this year.

But while the Overwatch team shied away from details about the upcoming maps, we’re fairly certain that these maps will have a lot to do with Winston and his home colony, the Horizon Lunar Colony.

From the little we know about Winston, he is a genetically-modified gorilla from the Horizon Lunar Colony based on the moon. The gorillas then started a rebellion and killed all the humans who created them, including Winston’s creator Harold Winston, and the chaos and despair prompted Winston to escape to Earth.

Nine months ago, back when Overwatch just barely released, users at the Overwatch reddit started to scavenge for hidden jewels buried in the Overwatch files. Users xArDDe and ethanciavo were able to datamine unused audio files, some which have been since used in various Overwatch events.

Most recently, user OverwatchSara reviews old and newer audio files and has come up with interesting space-sounding effects and voice lines. This has led to more speculation that one or maybe all three of the new maps that the dev team is working on for Overwatch could propel us to the moon, where Winston’s fellow Gorilla mates could still be lurking about.

Some of the space-related audio clips OverwatchSara has highlighted are below. Could be rocket sounds, space ship commands, and alien-sounding stuff.

And if there’s one datamined audio to make sense of all of these weird unknown sound clips, it’s this Winston voice line which clearly says: “Go back to the moon? I don’t know.”

Other Overwatch players over at Reddit are already putting in their thoughts about the possible new moon map for a Lunar Colony-themed event. Maybe something like the Uprising Arcade map where we get another PVE event as we reclaim the moon from hordes of genetically-altered gorillas. Or a space-themed event where we don our favorite heroes in astronaut suits and bulky mecha gear (I’m smelling some pretty cool chunky gear for our resident skinnies Tracer and Ana).

Anyway, the first anniversary celebration of Overwatch is next month, and we’re sure Blizzard is cooking something big and fancy for their first birthday. And since Overwatch just passed 30 million players on the PC and consoles, as reported by Venture Beat, there are definitely a lot of things to celebrate.

[Featured Image by Blizzard Entertainment]