Overwatch Summer Games 2018 Start and End Date Revealed

Overwatch’s limited-time annual event Summer Games begins its 2018 iteration on August 9, and will run until August 30, according to an official tweet posted Thursday.

It will feature the return of Lucioball, the football-inspired 3v3 game mode, as shown in the attached motion art. Blizzard also revealed a new setting in other tweets: Busan, South Korea. Previous Lucioball arenas have included Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Sydney, Australia.

The decision to pick Busan as the virtual setting was likely influenced by the game’s surge in popularity in the East Asian nation.

During Overwatch’s Summer Games event, players will also be able to earn new skins for other characters: Waveracer D.VA (Legendary), Gridironhardt Reinhardt (Legendary), and Catcher Winston (Legendary).

Last month, Blizzard added the 28th hero character to Overwatch in Wrecking Ball, a giant mech piloted by a hamster known as Hammond who shares his origin with another character in the game, Winston, who is a super intelligent gorilla from Horizon Lunar Colony, a map that was added to the game last year.

The Horizon Lunar Colony in Overwatch lore was an experiment meant to turn gorillas into scientists which ended poorly. Its subjects rebelled, launching human scientists into space. Wrecking Ball abilities include Quad Cannons, Roll, Grappling Claw, Minefield, Adaptive Shield, and Piledriver.

"When Wrecking Ball is at his strongest, he can use Minefield [to fling] mines onto the ground that deal a considerable amount of damage to enemies unfortunate enough to trigger them. As the sixth tank hero in the Overwatch lineup, Wrecking Ball provides disruption while also being an aggressive bruiser that bullies the enemy’s backline, eliminating vulnerable heroes that are left unguarded. He excels at disrupting enemies’ positioning with his Roll and Piledriver abilities while also posing a serious threat if he’s left alone to train his Quad Cannons on key targets," says Blizzard on how Wrecking Ball can be used in a match.