Creating Overwatch 2’s New Portugal Map, from Tall Towers to Tiny Tarts
Esperanca is Overwatch 2’s newest map. Set in Portugal, it pays tribute to the country’s architectural past while also ushering in Overwatch’s future through its streets. As a Push map - the sequel’s tug-of-war-like addition to the menu - it presented the development team with a lot of new challenges to overcome, but equally rewarded them on a professional and personal level. I spoke to Art Director Dion Rogers and Sound Designer Felipe de Mello Pereira to learn more about the design process, but first started with the basics: why Portugal?
“We actually have a huge list of places to go when we're working on a game and the team is a pretty international team”, Rogers explains. “ Actually the lead environment artist for Overwatch 2 is a guy from Portugal, Helder Pinto. Sometimes, when we have a person from the location, we get so much more of the culture and so much of the details. It just comes across a lot better because we have that close connection.”
“I think Portugal in terms of representation in Western media, it can sometimes get dwarfed by its neighbours that also are just explosions of culture and tourism”, states Pereira.
“I'm Brazilian, so a lot of my ancestry is Portuguese and it's always been kind of like this, like my great grandfather is Portuguese and my whole basically lineage up from there,” he continues. “So it's always been this kind of mythical thing where it's like, there's this place that a lot of our culture is from.Coincidentally, my wife and I are like, okay, we're going to go to Portugal finally. We booked the trip and then we started working on the Portugal map at work, and it was like this crazy coincidence.”
You’d assume visiting the real-life location of the map you’re trying to create would only
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