Overwatch 2 takes 'trick or treat' literally every single year, swinging between offensively overpriced spooky cosmetics and pretty fun themed modes each Halloween. But this year's Junkenstein's Lab PvP event was basically the Halloween equivalent of coming home with a Santa sack-full of sweets at the end of the night. It went way harder than it ever needed to, has been "incredibly popular," and is now getting some extra love from the Overwatch team.
Junkenstein's Lab is the limited-time arcade mode that's roguelike-esque in the sense that you can mod each hero's abilities in between rounds, and these mutations aren't just limited to boring stat boosts either - they leave the door open for some legit buildcrafting in a competitive space. I called it the best new Overwatch mode in years, but beyond that, it's also a fun peek at the modified hero skills that Blizzard Entertainment were toying around with in the scrapped co-op campaign. RIP.
Frankensteining one of the campaign's most exciting features was a brilliant idea that's now paid off, it seems. "Quick update on Junkenstein's Lab," game director Aaron Keller tweeted earlier this week. "The event has been incredibly popular! Two weeks after launch, 15% of our daily players are still jumping into the mode. To help support it, we're going to put out a small balance patch for it. Have fun!"
Bilzzard's patch notes contain a pretty hefty list of tweaks to the different mutations each hero can grab at the end of each round. They're mostly minor stat adjustments that'll either enrage or please you depending on who you main - my Zen was hit a little hard, but Orisa stans can rejoice at the fact that you can now go into free flight while casting Javelin Spin.
As a Halloween mode, Junkenstein's Lab's popularity isn't saving it from its inevitable doom since the mode is still being taken offline on November 4, presumably until next Halloween. This isn't entirely the end of the road for cool moveset remixes, however. At the time of the campaign's cancellation, Keller said that some canned ideas would make their way into non-canonical modes - like Junkenstein's Lab - so there's still hope for more hero 'Talents' to get the Frankenstein treatment.
Concord development deal reportedly rivaled The Last of Us Part 2 and Horizon Forbidden West at $200 million, which Sony has now chucked into a big ol' furnace
As Sony shuts it down, Concord studio reflects on "a heavily consolidated market" and says "putting new things into the world is critical to pushing the medium forward"
