Ever since Blizzard introduced Overwatch custom games, the community has been coming up with ridiculous and fun custom game modes. From McCree’s Highest Noon to Reinhardt Bumper Cars, players have found plenty of ways to have a good time in custom games. This Play of the Fortnight we’re going to share a few of our favorites.
McCree’s Highest Noon
Also known as “Fly Noon,” McCree’s Highest Noon involves low gravity, high ultimate charge, and possibly modifiers to increase damage received. Most lobbies also turn off flashbang. What this results in is McCrees flying high in the air, shooting each other and charging their ultimates rapidly.
While they’re bouncing around the map, due to the high ultimate charge, you’ll repeatedly hear: “It’s high noon!” This results in a terrifying feeling of being exposed, as if you jump you shoot off into the air and become a prime target.
Ana Paintball
Ana Paintball is one of the most popular Overwatch custom game modes. Most, if not all, of Ana’s abilities get disabled (though some leave on her Sleep Dart) and her damage is increased to 500%. This creates an instant-kill game mode where Ana becomes an absolute death machine.
If you’re shot, you’re out. Not that you’ll have much choice in the matter, as you will die instantly. The game mode is fast paced and exciting, which is odd considering everyone is playing a healer.
Widowmaker Headshot
This one is more of a base for game modes. All it requires is Widowmaker being the only hero to pick and having heroes need to receive headshot damage to die. However, it can branch off into multiple different game modes or be played vanilla.
For example, a game mode affectionately called “Spiderwatch” involves no cooldown on the Grappling Hook. This allows players to zip around the map at high speed and pop off headshots on one another to win.
Reinhardt Bumper Cars
Remember the bumper cars you’d beg to go on at the fair? Someone created a Reinhardt Bumper Cars custom game mode and it’s glorious. It could also be played as a kind of destruction derby type game, as mostly it involves Reinhardts charging across the map and smacking into each other at high speed.
For the settings, just limit to only Reinhardt and reduce gravity while increasing movement speed and dropping Reinhardt’s charge time. Reinhardt Bumper Cars works best on maps with long straight sections, such as King’s Row. Picking maps with racetrack-like sections allows you to get a good charge going before you inevitably crash into someone. However, control point maps create tiny arenas allowing for some serious chaos as well.
Infection Mode
In Infection Mode, players start as a hero and go out to kill the enemy team as normal, however, there’s a catch. Once you’re killed by a hero, you have to swap to that hero and try to kill other people. Usually killing someone with the same hero as you is also discouraged. For example, if you’re killed by a Mei, you pick Mei on your next respawn.
These particular rules aren’t enforceable on the custom games lobby settings. Unfortunately that means having to trust that players won’t break the rules. However, the community really enjoys Infection mode and has been asking for it to be added as an official Arcade mode. We can always hope.
Ultimate Boss Battle
Boss Battles have always been quite popular, but this particular variant of boss battle allows any of the hero roster to be a boss. Each one has a unique playstyle or gimmick, which is detailed in the guide here on Reddit (credit to Redditor TheHolyNoodle). The goal is for a team of six to be able to take out the one boss. The boss cannot change heroes until they’ve been slain.
For example, D.Va as a boss spawns without her mech. However, when she gets her mech, she has no cooldowns and does significantly increased damage to the team of heroes. Genji cannot use primary or secondary fire, but has infinite Nano Blade, making him pretty frightening to go up against.
Tracer Tag
Perhaps one of the most fun and simultaneously most infuriating of the custom games is Tracer Tag. High movement speed, constant blinking, and perhaps a reduced cooldown on Recall are key to this game mode. All other abilities and fire modes are disabled. Players have to Blink around the map and attempt to melee kill the enemy Tracers, with increased melee damage to ensure a one shot kill.
Tracer is hard enough to hit as it is, let alone when she’s darting around at high speed and only killable with melee. Tracer Tag borders on the ridiculous, but in a game with a hamster in a ball as a hero, who are we to judge?
Closing Thoughts
The custom game feature has brought a lot of variety to Overwatch and has allowed players to flex their creative muscles. Some of the game modes prove more popular than others -- sniper games are always highly popular -- and there are some that could use some outside support from Blizzard to make sure the rules are followed. However, it is great to see the community coming up with wacky ideas for a good time.
There’s even a subreddit dedicated entirely to custom game ideas, called /r/OverwatchCustomGames. Players over there frequently come up with new ideas and discuss how best to set the rules and lobby settings and then test them out.
What’s your favorite Overwatch custom game mode? Let us know in the comments below!
