Overwatch’s Future 2017 Maps May Have Been Datamined

When most big PC games are updated developers also leave behind building blocks for future updates, such as folders with map titles or additional character names. Now, these building blocks are often targets of data mining, allowing fans a small teaser of upcoming content. Absolutely no game is safe from it as reddit user u/richardgryffon proved when he data mined Overwatch this past weekend and shared his findings.

Using the PC application Overtool, Richard Gryffon went through Overwatch’s latest update files, discovering a series of folders titled “map_source228” which contained hints at upcoming maps. His first finding was for a file titled “Maunganui_es” for a map presumably named Maunganui. In the real world, “Maunganui” is called Mount Maunganui and is found if you travel to the city of Tauranga, New Zealand where it’s climbable by tourists. This makes total sense, as the file ending “_ES” denotes Maunganui as an escort map, meaning you would hypothetically bring a payload up the publicly accessible mountain. It’s worthwhile to note that the playable Overwatch character, Roadhog is originally from New Zealand.

His second finding was a file titled “Utopia_c,” alluding to a map called Utopia. It could be assumed that this map would take place in Utopia, India, linking it to the Overwatch character, Symmetra. It could be assumed from the file ending that this would be a control point map.

 

Now, most of this could come off as fake, but the dataminer proved the credibility of his findings. Alongside his post, he shared how he found files for Lunar Colony in the same group of folders as Utopia and Maunganui. Lunar Colony is already known to be an upcoming map set to release this Tuesday.

Of course, we’ll get a final answer in the coming months, possibly by the time we reach the Summer Games event later this year.