Horizon Lunar Colony is one of Overwatch’s most contentious maps—it seriously favors the attacking team, which a lot of players find unfair. The open sight lines and sneaky flanks make both points hard to defend. But Blizzard has never really spoken about the map’s problems, so it came as a huge surprise to see a quiet overhaul revealed in the latest test server patch.
Blizzard is currently working on a major rework of Horizon Lunar Colony, Overwatch principal level designer David Adams said in the game’s forum—but the map wasn’t supposed to be pushed live in the PTR patch.
Related: Hanzo rework, Tracer nerf live now on Overwatch’s test server
“Well, that wasn’t supposed to happen but there you go,” Adams wrote. “We have some changes that we are still working on and testing for the map so what you are seeing here may not be final.”
An Overwatch player posted a walkthrough of the new changes on YouTube (see above). Horizon Lunar Colony is visually very different now, with changes that should benefit the defending team, like extra walls for cover. Blizzard also added a number of new platform adjustments for Horizon Lunar Colony’s second point.
But like Adams said, this was an accidental upload. All of these changes could eventually make it through to the live game, or none of them. The next time we see Horizon Lunar Colony it could, again, look totally different. But it’s nice to know that Blizzard is working on the map’s balance, and willing to make such drastic changes.
Overwatch’s latest PTR patch is massive, adding a major Hanzo rework and nerfs to Tracer and Junkrat.
