You Won’t Spend Much Time Outside In Overwatch’s Moon Map

Horizon Lunar Colony, the latest assault map to be added to Overwatch‘s playable roster, might have a neat route into low gravity orbit. But while that’s fun to play around in, you won’t spend much time there – because the map is an attacker’s dream, with lots of accessible high ground and room for spamming.

Horizon Lunar Colony is playable on Blizzard’s public test server right now, with a full public release due in the near future. Blizzard and Jeff Kaplan haven’t explicitly billed it as an attacker’s paradise, but there’s plenty of decent high ground for attackers. Hanzo mains will be thrilled.

The map is straightforward, with two capture points. The first point is walled off by a glass window, but there’s a huge open area immediately outside, as well as the airlock doors leading to the only low gravity section of the map.

Defenders have a couple of key options: either pincer attackers as they try to enter the capture point, or setup for a fight in the centre chokepoint just before that, which you can see here:

There’s plenty of high ground and it’s an incredibly wide area. Hanzo, Widowmaker, Bastion and Torbjorn mains will have a blast, since the map’s design encourages players to spread, making players more exposed and easier to pick off.

As mentioned before, you can access the outer surface of the moon from just outside the first point. You won’t spend much time there though: there’s not much to do and re-entry through the enclosed space of the airlock is a pretty risky proposition. It’s fun though, much in the way Oasis’ jump pad is, although in the latter you have the ability to have a material impact on the course of the match (think a McCree ultimate).

That small area is the only outdoor section of the map, and the only part where you’ll get to play with low gravity. It will probably get ignored for the most part, since it’s a bit of a hassle for attackers to venture towards in the first place – and once the first point is captured, there’s little benefit to going back.

The second point has multiple routes inward, although there’s fewer high ground entry points for attackers. The high ground is pretty good for sniping, or high DPS characters like Soldier 76 and Junkrat, once you get there. It makes defending a touch harder, and that’s coupled by the fact that the capture point itself is very wide, and very open. Which is great if you’re, say, a raging Winston:

There’s plenty of doodads and trinkets from Winston’s past, however, and the attacking spawn has a telescope you can interact with. There’s even some space-like fidget spinners lying around – but no basketball, so no Space Jam. Poor form, Blizzard.

Overwatch already has plenty of maps that are defender-friendly, provided your team has a modicum of co-ordination, so it’ll be fun to see something that leans the other way.