Lucio And New Maps Revealed At gamescom
by JR Cook - 9 years ago show comments
As teased last week, which we speculated on extensively, Blizzard has revealed a new hero named Lúcio at gamescom, as well as two new maps. Let’s get into it.
First off, take a look at Lúcio and his ability preview.
Gameplay Analysis
The first thing to talk about with Lúcio is his mobility. Being able to run across walls makes him an interesting target to hit, and the video demonstrates that it’ll give him options for moving around the map that other characters might not have. Knocking back enemies with his secondary attack, plus being able to improve his own speed with Crossfade, means that he’ll be able to escape hot spots. The fact that Crossfade improves speed for nearby allies means that he’ll be a big asset on offense, especially combined with Crossfade’s healing option and his ultimate ability.
It’s important to point out that the shields from Sound Barrier appear to be very temporary, as it looks like they deplete quickly. That means the best usage case for it will be when your allies are just about to take a lot of fire, and combined with Crossfade, you’re either sustaining them with the trickle heals or switching to the speed option to get them out of the hot zone quickly.
Overall, it looks like Lúcio will be a more challenging support to use, but he presents a lot of interesting options that differentiate him from Zenyatta and Mercy. It’s interesting to compare him against Symmetra, since her Photon Shield and Teleporter contrast against the defense and movement options that Lúcio brings to the table. Strictly speaking, though, it may come down to map choice: if you need on-demand speed improvements during your offense, take Lúcio, but if you want zone defense and have to defend a fixed point, you may want Symmetra and her turrets.
Character Critique
What’s wonderful about Lúcio (and by the way, the proper pronunciation is “LOO-see-oh” which is why the accent is there) is that you don’t normally expect a male character to be rollerblading around the map and dancing about during his attacks. It’s a great character touch that changes up gender roles to an extent, while also presenting a male character silhouette that is pretty against-type for how Blizzard has typically done male characters throughout their games. Lúcio really stands out when you see him standing next to beefy broad-shouldered dudes like McCree, Hanzo, and Soldier:76.
What’s a bit bothersome about Lúcio is that he’s got a color palette that evokes Brazil, has his headquarters in Brazil according to his profile, has a Brazilian name, uses Portuguese extensively in his album titles, and yet doesn’t have an accent of any kind. There doesn’t even seem to be any Portuguese dialogue that he’ll occasionally shout out while using his abilities, just as Hanzo shouts in Japanese and Zarya occasionally spouts some Russian. To an extent, it’s a missed opportunity to emphasize the international qualities of the character, and it just feels like an oversight given everything else that was done to give the character a Brazilian appearance and backstory. It’s not a dealbreaker for me, because he still looks like he’ll play wonderfully in the game, but it’s a noticeable miss in an otherwise excellent character reveal.
New Maps
In a double shot, the team also revealed two new maps: Volskaya Industries and Numbani, both of which were teased in the last week along with Lúcio.
From the video description, we know the following:
Volskaya Industries and Numbani are two new objective-based maps revealed at gamescom 2015!
Volskaya Industries is a Point Capture map located near St. Petersburg, Russia—a manufacturing center responsible for producing massive, human-piloted mechs which help protect the local population. Following a rise in omnic hostilities, attacking and defending teams must now battle for control of this facility and its powerful Svyatogor mobile suits.
Numbani is a Point Capture/Payload hybrid map set in a utopian city on the edge of the African savanna. Here, one team must escort Doomfist’s gauntlet as it travels to the Numbani Heritage Museum, while the opposing team fights to stop this infamous weapon from reaching its final destination.
As we surmised yesterday, Volskaya will heavily feature the Svyatogor mecha as part of the level, while also telling a story about how the Russian conflict with the omnium. In addition, the Numbani map’s emphasis on the Doomfist exhibit helps to connect lines back to the cinematic trailer, while also suggesting a narrative that Doomfist himself might make an appearance in the game at some point.
Hopefully we’ll see a more extensive gameplay preview posted for Lúcio in the near future (the gameplay for S:76 came VERY shortly after his reveal) and with any luck, it’ll show gameplay on one of the two maps so that we can get a better sense of what’s going on in these locations.
