A new Overwatch Deathmatch map has apparently leaked — get ready to head to Malavento, a new location in Italy that serves as the home of a secret Talon base.
Overwatch content has been pretty barebones over the last several years since Blizzard Entertainment is focusing its efforts on Overwatch 2. Although there haven't been too many major developments, the devs haven't left the players entirely in the cold; each new event features some more cosmetic skins for players to collect and there have been tiny pieces of new content to enjoy.
Most recently, the Kanezaka Deathmatch map was detailed late last year by former Game Director Jeff Kaplan; this location takes players to a different part of Hanamura in an experience that's handcrafted for Deathmatch gameplay. Now, another main map is getting a Deathmatch spinoff with Malavento.
What is the New Overwatch Deathmatch Map?
The new Overwatch map is Malavento, a location set in the mountains of Italy that serves as the location of a secret Talon base. Previously, the introduction of Rialto gave players the opportunity to see Talon's headquarters.
The existence of the map was revealed in a now-deleted Dexerto article detailing the map along with a handful of screeenshots; players quickly archived the article and it popped up on /r/GamingLeaksAndRumours and /r/Overwatch in short order.
As Dexerto's articel describes it, this map seems well-balanced for Deathmatch — it has plenty of tight, enclosed spaces for intense firefights to take place. The larger, more open areas of the map will surely serve as locations for long-range Heroes such as Widowmaker and Ashe to excelt.
When is the Overwatch Malavento Release Date?
Unfortunately, we don't yet know the Overwatch Malavento release date. The Dexerto article says that it was supposed to launch July 22, 2021, on the Overwatch PTR, but that clearly hasn't happened yet. I tried to connect to the PTR anyway, but the test servers are not yet online.
So what happened? No specific reason was mentioned, but several people in the Reddit discussions are (quite reasonably) speculating that this launch was pulled at the last minute following the recent filing of a harassment lawsuit against Activision-Blizzard.
Either way, it looks likely that Malavento will be released at some point in the comiing weeks. For now, there's still plenty of fun to be had in Overwatch, especially with the Summer Games event going on right now; you can buy Overwatch for PC and consoles for $39.99 or your regional equivalent via the game's official website.
What do you think of the new Overwatch Deathmatch map Malavento? What's your favorite Deathmatch map in the game? Let us know in the comments below!
