With the announcement of Overwatch 2, there are a lot of changes coming to Overwatch. New maps are being added, some for the new Overwatch 2 game mode Push, and some for the regular Overwatch game modes. Due to the new influx of maps, Blizzard has decided to add a map catalog for Overwatch to avoid overwhelming competitive players.
The map catalog
will limit the maps that are available in competitive mode to a select number of core maps. It will restrict the number of maps in rotation to three maps per mode. This means that there will be a limit of twelve competitive maps in total, three Assault, Control, Escort, and Hybrid mode maps.
The first aspect of the map pool that Blizzard confirmed is that two of the current maps will be removed from the first rotation: Paris and Horizon Lunar Colony. Since these maps are not popular in the Overwatch community, it is not surprising that these are the first confirmed to be removed from the pool.
Since then, the full map pool for competitive season 19 has been announced. The map pool for the current season includes plenty of fan favorites, but there are some surprises there as well:
- Assault: Hanamura, Temple of Anubis, Volskaya Industries
- Hybrid: Hollywood, King’s Row, Eichenwalde
- Control: Nepal, Lijiang Tower, Busan
- Escort: Dorado, Watchpoint: Gibralter, Havana
Since this is only slightly more than half of the maps in the game, some players might notice that their favorite maps are missing from the pool. This pool will only last for this season, so it is likely that some of the missing maps will be found in the Season 20 rotation. The limited map pool will allow players to focus on strategy for just a few maps rather than having to worry about having to keep strategies in mind for every map in the game. It allows a higher level of play in any individual season, but may have the side effect of making it harder for newer players to make the transition from quick play to competitive if map knowledge becomes more important. Only time will tell.