Overwatch Control Game Mode Guide

Table of Contents

• 1. Rules
• 2. Overtime
• 3. Maps

The Control Game Mode is different from all other 3 Game Modes in that both teams have the same role and the same objective within a given round. The objective of Control maps is to maintain control of a single point, located in the center of the map, equidistant from the spawn points of both teams. Each team has their own Control Counter for the control exhibited over the point, and the first team to reach 100% wins the round.

30 seconds after the start of the round, the point becomes unlocked, allowing teams to capture it. Capturing this point works similarly to capturing a point in the Point Capture or Hybrid Game Modes, with the exception that there are no intermediary checkpoints along the path to full control of the point (so even almost full control can revert down to nothing). Once a team captures the point, they have control over it which in turn increases their Control Counter at the rate of about 1% per second. The progress on the Control Counter never decays throughout a round, even when control has been lost to the other team.

Effectively, the teams will fight over the point for the duration of the game, with the team that does not have control attempting to wrest it from the controlling team before they reach 100% control.

It is worth noting that once a team has control of the point, they do not need to stand on the point for them to maintain control (unless a player of the opposing team is on the point to recapture it).

Each Control map has 3 different sub-areas, with each round taking place in one of these sub-areas. The maps are played in a best of 3 format (best of 5 in Competitive Play), with the order in which the sub-areas are played being chosen at random.

An important concept that applies to all Game Modes and maps is that of Overtime. The system is not entirely intuitive, so we feel it best to explain it here.

The purpose of Overtime is to prevent a team from losing a round while they are in control of or contesting the objective. This works slightly differently depending on the Game Mode, so we will break it down. However, it is true for all Game Modes that there is no limit to the amount of times Overtime can be triggered in a given round, nor to the total amount of time that the game can extended by due to Overtime.

On Control maps, Overtime is triggered if the point is being contested when one team's Control Counter reaches 99%. This effectively prevents the round from ending, allowing the other team the chance to take over the point and bring up their own Control Counter. As soon as the point is no longer being contested by the losing team, the Overtime will burn out over a few seconds, at which point the team that is at 99% will win the round.

There are currently 3 Control Maps in Overwatch.

• Ilios
• Lijiang Tower
• Nepal