Overwatch’s new anniversary event, which kicked off yesterday, is a pinata explosion of celebration and glee. But who actually cares about that? The only thing that matters is dance emotes. Now Overwatch has turned into a giant dance floor.
Overwatch players have started using the game’s custom match tools to host dance parties. A lot of people are doing this. Seriously, a lot.
Typically, this involves jacking up everybody’s HP to infinite (to make sure nobody can kill the good vibes... or each other) and letting them cut loose on a smaller map. Sometimes people run around and try to shoot each other anyway, but in my experience, people usually end up congregating in the middle, dancing, and chatting. Some servers play music over voice chat, which is cool. I even came across one server that paired dancing and character shipping. I was surprised by this for an entire third of a second.
Here’s a video of one, courtesy of DogeOfShibe:
It’s not all that far removed from other chill-out servers in Overwatch, but it’s a welcome break from Overwatch’s usual chaos, in which lives are lost, salt is spilt, and nobody gets on the damn payload.
At one point, I even got to play a concert on Pharah’s rocket guitar:
For a brief, shining moment, I was my truest self. Then another Pharah player used her concussive blast to catapult everybody into a hole. If that’s not widely considered a party foul, it probably should be.
Dance emotes are limited to Overwatch’s anniversary event, meaning that people won’t be able to unlock them after it’s over. I wonder, then, how long this trend will last. I also wonder how people will inevitably incorporate sex role-play into this, but I should probably stop.