Overwatch introduces player-created content with its new Workshop feature

While Overwatch undoubtedly has a beautiful style and an emphasis on skill-based combat, fans of the shooter have noticeably been yearning for more. It seems as though Blizzard has been listening, with its brand new Workshop feature allowing player-created content through “a simplified scripting system.”

Currently only available on PC’s Public Test Realm server, the Workshop allows players to take pre-existing game modes and heroes to build on top of them, creating new rules, win conditions and a whole range of quirky new obstacles. It does have its limitations, as players will not be able to import art or change up level design, but it does open up a whole new world for fans to explore unofficial lore, create new powers for a hero and test balancing suggestions to pass onto Blizzard.

Unsurprisingly, fans have already made good use of the new tool crafting new things to do. There’s already Hamster Ball Racing where players are tasked with rolling into checkpoints as quickly as possible, a Custom Hero Creator which resembles Dota 2’s Ability Draft mode by combining attacks from multiple heroes and someone who claims to have fixed tea bagging by instantly killing those that take part in the debatably toxic behaviour.

Director Jeff Kaplan is keeping his ear to the ground for the best of the best, suggesting that some might make their way to the live build of the game. In his developer diary, he specifically highlighted Molten Floor, a version of the ever-nostalgic ‘floor is lava’ where the floor is actually lava, and Mirror Deathmatch, where players face off as the same character for one minute before cycling to another hero.

The Workshop tool isn’t for beginners as Kaplan states that it “is more of a power-user feature,” but it does offer unexplored areas that will refresh the game in untold ways. It will eventually make its way to PS4 and Xbox One in the future, once Blizzard has fully tested it alongside the PC community.

KitGuru Says: Personally, if I played Overwatch, I’d create a mode like Call of Duty’s Gun Game, where players have to cycle through a pre-set selection of heroes by killing the enemy in a free-for-all. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is already a thing given the amount of imagination already pumped into the Subreddit.

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