Today the new control map Oasis was added to the Overwatch PTR. Oasis was the map shown off at Overwatch's section of the BlizzCon 2016 keynote. The map is a futuristic city in the Arabian Desert that serves as beacon of scientific progress in the Overwatch world. Continuing in Overwatch's tradition of having beautifully designed maps Oasis shows off a combination of traditional Arabian architecture with a highly technologically advanced twist. The announcement describes Oasis as such:
Oasis is one of the world's most advanced cities, a shining jewel rising from the Arabian Desert. A monument to human ingenuity and invention, researchers and academics from around the region came together to found a city dedicated to scientific progress without restraints. The city and its inhabitants are governed by the Ministries, a collection of brilliant minds who possess many secrets that have attracted the interest of powerful organizations from around the world.
This addition comes to the PTR shortly after the major changes to Symmetra were released into it for testing, as well as adding an unlockable "Boop" voice line for Sombra (how did they miss that in the beginning?). Also concerning Symmetra's changes, on the Battle.net forums Jeff Kaplan stated today, "We want to keep testing Symmetra on the PTR for a bit still." So it looks like we'll have to wait a bit longer for her changes to be finalized.
Oasis looks to be an interestingly designed map that brings more verticality to the Overwatch with both with its structural design and the addition of jump pads to launch heroes into the air. If Blizzard keeps its word from BlizzCon we'll likely see Oasis added into the full game sometime in December, hopefully before the Christmas event starts so everyone can get to enjoy the new map before focusing on getting Christmas Loot Boxes.
What do you think of the new map? Do you think adding more verticality will give too much of an edge to highly mobile heroes? What kinds of design elements would you like to see implemented into a future map? Let us know in the comments!