The Uprising event for Overwatch is now live despite technical difficulties that delayed the event's launch for approximately two hours. A new patch has come along with the event as well, bringing quite a few interesting changes to the game including some big changes to Lúcio. And yes, that was a new Orisa skin we saw at the end of the event trailer.
Uprising is the latest PvE event for Overwatch. Set 7 years in the past, it shows the Overwatch team intervening in the King's Row Uprising. The extremist Omnic group Null Sector has taken over a portion of London and Commander Morrison (Soldier 76) has deployed a team to the region to deal with the threat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpGrY9i8TSA
The event proper is split into two sections, located in the Arcade. Uprising restricts players to Reinhardt, Torbjörn, Tracer, and Mercy in their Overwatch-themed skins from the mission. Uprising (All Heroes) is the more "open" mode that allows you to select anyone to complete the mission. The mission itself has four phases. First, players must secure three objective points to disable anti-aircraft guns. Secondly, a payload is called down at the same place the normal King's Row payload launches from and it must be defended for a few minutes. Next, players must escort the payload to the door of the local power plant where it will detonate and breach the door. Finally, players must kill all of the Null Sector Omnics who are occupying the power plant. A variety of unique enemies exist for this PvE feature. Players will also encounter Null Sector-skinned Bastions (in both Sentry and Tank mode) and Orisas. Completing each of the two different events will award players with one Uprising loot box apiece.
Speaking of loot, every single character has received two new voice lines for the event. Some characters have received new victory poses, emotes, or highlight intros, but the thing that most people are probably interested in the skins so let's get right to it. Here's a gallery detailing all of the new skins!
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The skins for this event are quite pricey - two of the skins are rated as Epic (750 C) and the rest are rated as Legendary (3,000 Credits). You would need 25,500 Credits to unlock all of the skins (nevermind the highlight intros, victory poses, emotes, voice lines, and sprays.)
Although the centerpiece of this update is the Uprising event, a patch has been deployed as well which has made some changes to Overwatch. The in-game integration of lore (originally announced in early March and added to the PTR in the following weeks) has been added to a degree. Each character has a biography listed in the Hero Gallery, and a selection of skins reveal additional story when they're selected.
The in-game report system on PC has had some additional options added to it. In-game voice conversations for the Uprising PvE mode can have subtitles displayed if you enable them in the Sound options menu. The new tracking system for competitive play (where partial captures are recorded and set as the bar for victory) has been implemented. Eichenwald has had a route opened up through the music store at the first point. Lastly, the ability to save Custom Games (as well as a couple of new features such as tinkering with infinite ammo) have been added, but the at the time of writing the feature is temporarily disabled due to technical issues.
As for hero updates, Orisa has had her head hitbox reduced by 15%, Other than that, Lúcio has received all of the shiny new updates that were being tested on the PTR. The damage of his Sonic Amplifier (primary fire) has been increased by 25% and the speed of the projectile has been increased by 25%. His alternate fire (right click) now factors in vertical orientation; this means that if you're higher or lower than a target it will be booped away at a more realistic angle. The AoE for his Crossfade ability (his music) has been cut by 66% to 10 meters, but his healing-per-second has increased by 33% to compensate. Lúcio's self-healing has been reduced by 25%. Additionally, Lúcio will be even more of a speed freak thanks to a 20% increase in speed while wallriding. Finally, Lúcio will get a burst of speed when he jumps off of a wall he's been riding on. The developers have detailed their reasons for the changes thusly:
Developer Comments: Lúcio has often felt like a must-pick due to his raw healing output and the versatility of providing a speed bonus to your entire team. The goal of these changes is to keep those elements feeling strong, but making them harder to apply to everyone on your team at all times. The end result is that he should feel stronger with teams that he can stay close to but not as strong when on teams with heroes that are often spread out (such as Pharah, Widow, Genji, etc). Much of Lúcio’s character power was tied up in his large passive auras, which caused other elements of his kit to be weakened over time in an attempt to balance him. Now that his auras are more focused it will allow them to be much stronger and allow Lúcio to be more active in his role.A bunch of bug fixes and other minor changes have been made which we won't detail here - check out the full patch notes for all of the information on the changes. The Uprising event will be running in Overwatch through May 1st, so get out there and trash some Omnics!
What do you think of the Uprising event? Do you think the skins were priced too high for this particular event? What's your favorite addition to the game in this particular patch? Let us know in the comments below!
