Overwatch is packed full of cosmetic items for players to collect, as fans have no shortage of unlockables to customize their heroes with. One of these options is emotes, which see Overwatch characters posing in several different ways — and it seems like McCree’s new emote is a bit more special than the others.
Overwatch is full of memorable emotes to collect, ranging from Brigitte hugging a massive cat to Orisa playing with a puppy. Zarya can be seen opening presents, while Sombra can be made to play with a puppet of Reaper. Roadhog’s “Secret Friend” emote saw him playing with a Pachimari plushie, and it proved so popular with fans that that it inspired his skin in Overwatch’s recent Pachimari event. However, one thing that all the old emotes have in common is that they have no impact on gameplay.
Overwatch’s new Archives event sees McCree getting an emote called Quick Draw. The opposite of its name, the emote sees the cowboy slowly revolving his trusty Peacekeeper revolver. Glancing in front of him as he does, McCree eventually finishes the reload, tilting his gun to the side before spinning it and getting back into the fighting position. While this would normally be some fairly standard fare for the gunslinger, Redditor ArariboiaOverdrive posted a clip on Reddit that reveals McCree actually is reloading the gun.
Amassing nearly 20,000 upvotes on Reddit, the post quickly blew up, with the Overwatch fanbase being shocked by the cool little detail. If players empty their magazine, or even fire a few shots, the Quick Draw animation will see their ammo entirely restored. As pointed out by players in the comments, this special detail is not necessarily advantageous in-game. After all, the flashy reload takes a few seconds longer than McCree’s first-person reload. It does give players a third person perspective, though, which could at least allow them to see around corners when reloading.
As many Redditors pointed out, this detail will likely be used to allow McCree players to show off more in-game. Doing this reload prior to getting a Play of the Game could add some flare, while doing it after a team kill could serve as a taunt to the enemy team. It will also be interesting to see if characters like Reaper and Tracer get similar functionality. The former has a few emotes where he tosses his shotguns, while the latter uses Recall during some of her emoting. Both reload their guns in-game, so it will be interesting to see if Blizzard gives them the same love or keeps McCree’s reload ability special.
Regardless, seeing an emote of any kind have an actual impact on Overwatch’s gameplay is a fun change of pace. With the community responding well to the addition, it might just become a trend that continues going forward.
Overwatch is available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.