Overwatch 2 - Wuxing University

Wuxing University is a control point Stadium map that launched with season 20, and my final map on the Overwatch 2 team. The stomping grounds of our newest hero Wuyang, the map centers on the training area for the water school, with schools for the other four elements featured in the backdrop.

For this map we wanted to be authentic to the Chengdu region of China. I worked on the organics and made the bamboo trees, large rock kit, and peach trees. Andrew Klimas did the exterior architecture, Justin McMillan did interiors and props, and Tim Wasson made the ground. The backdrop was done by our partners at Airborn, and DragonFly contributed many new props.

One interesting thing about this map is that the peach trees use shadow proxies. At one point I received feedback that the shadows were too noisy, so I disabled cast shadows on the blossoms and made a custom shell with an alpha’d mask that’s hidden in the game but casts the shadows that you see.

All Overwatch maps are a group effort. Level design was done by Ryan Smith, lighting by Mike Hardison, FX by Hoshiko Oyamatsu, and Nina Petchprapa was our map tech artist. Major thanks to lead 3D artist Phil Wang and associate AD Peter Lee for their excellent art direction and guidance, and as ever to the incredible Overwatch team.