Overwatch fan-made Cairo map catches Jeff Kaplan's eye

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"We'll be in touch."

This Cairo-inspired map, courtesy of Overwatch fan and self-taught 3D artist Joshua Llorente, is so good that it's caught the attention of game director Jeff Kaplan. The payload map is made in Unreal Engine 4, and it looks stunning. The mixture of far-future skylines and Egyptian pillars is straight out the Blizzard playbook.

Llorente initially posted art from the map on Reddit last week, to which Jeff Kaplan said: "Amazing work! We'll be in touch." Today, Llorente shared an actual on-foot walkthrough of the map (which you can see above), and it arguably looks even better from the ground than it does from the air.

I love the way the moonlight reflects off the domed rooftops. The architecture is consistent throughout, and the soft edges mean it wouldn't look out of place in Blizzard's map rotation.

Arguably, it's less focused than an Overwatch map should be, especially a payload map: there's more passageways than I can keep track of. If the Blizzard team ever wanted to do something off the back of it (and Kaplan's comment suggest they at least want to talk to Llorente about his work), then they'd probably look at tightening up. But visually, it's pure Overwatch.

Below is the initial video Llorente posted of the map, and you can click here for more high-quality screenshots.

It's far from the first Overwatch-inspired map Llorente has made. You can look through the rest of his impressive portfolio here—his Favela map is my personal favourite.

Cheers, PCGamesN.

Samuel Horti
Samuel Horti

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.