Blizzard responds to questions about mini maps

Today, Blizzard responded to questions many of the players had about the game: “mini maps.” Any first person shooter game player and multiplayer online battle arena game player knows how important mini maps can be. Map position can be very important in taking objectives. Having good positioning and being able to tell where your teammates are is really beneficial to competitive play. People have been requesting that Overwatch, which currently does not have this feature, add it too. Well today, Blizzard finally gave an answer to all these cries for help, and the answer is no.

Blizzard responded to this question earlier today on the Battle.net forums. Game Director Jeff Kaplan was quoted as saying:

 We don’t have any plans for adding a mini-map to the game. Eventually, we would like to add a map for Observers in esport broadcasting, but this is a ways off.

Our reasoning for not adding a mini-map is that players claim they want this to solve navigation issues, but more often than not, mini-maps in FPS with small maps like OW do not actually help you learn the map much quicker than just playing it a few times. What tends to happen is players demand more and more information on the minimap (enemies in particular). What was originally intended to “help newer players” actually becomes a very high skill player tool (ask a MOBA or COD player how important the mini-map is to competitive play).

We definitely agree that helping newer players learn maps is a worthy cause. We just disagree that adding a mini-map to the game is the proper solution.

Kaplan did mention that even though they do not plan to add a mini map to the game, there is a mini map feature for observer mode that may be coming in the near future. This will be good for when games are being casted or when teams are watching replays. Want to keep up with the conversation or maybe add some feedback? The forum post can be found right here.

How do you feel about the decision to not put a mini map in the game? Do you agree or disagree? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter – @GAMURScom.