Obviously, MOBA games like League of Legends, Heroes and DOTA 2 have had a big influence on the gaming landscape (more about that in A Question of eSports, below right). It seems like we are in a moment where this particular sub-genre is really popular and has lots of activity,” Chu says. Then there’s Cliff Bleszinski’s PC-exclusive Lawbreakers. 2K launched Gearbox’s Battleborn at the start of May, while Epic is readying Paragon. The game isn’t alone in the team-shooter genre, of course. We are mostly just excited to have this out on PS4 and Xbox One.” We’ve always been really excited about developing this for consoles and have been working on it for quite a while, keeping both of those versions looking good. Early on we felt that Overwatch would make a really good console game. It’s something that we’re really excited about,” Chu says. This is also the first time that a new Blizzard game has launched on console and PC on the same day. One of the best things is we are truly inspired by the world around us – the history, the culture and different locations around the globe.”Īs well as being a new IP, it’s also coming to console. What we thought would be really interesting with Overwatch was taking the things we have learnt and applying that approach to our world. We’ve gone into this dark, grim Gothic space with Diablo, we’ve explored the stars in Starcraft, and a really in-depth fantasy universe like Warcraft. What we really settled in on was this idea of exploring all these fantastical universes. It was really an interesting opportunity to come in and create the Overwatch universe. Obviously, StarCraft, Warcraft and Diablo are our giants. There’s a little bit of pressure in creating something that has to stand up to the other big IP that Blizzard has,” Chu explains. Hearthstone is set within the Warcraft universe, while Heroes of the Storm borrows characters from StarCraft, Warcraft and Diablo. The firm does not typically invest in new IP – its recent releases, such as Hearthstone and MOBA Heroes of the Storm, borrow from the company’s previous franchises. Overwatch is a brand new Blizzard IP, the first since 1998’s StarCraft. That whole package is what we were shooting for when we were trying to think about what we as Blizzard want to bring to the games space.” Characters really pop from the screen and have these big personalities and interesting stories. There’s also really vibrant art and world that we are trying to create. We gave the heroes really powerful and unique abilities. He continues: We talk about ‘Blizzardising’ the game. We thought that was what made up the core of Overwatch.” Then we wanted to show them off in this team-based shooter, so we felt it was really important that the game was about working as a team using these characters together and achieving victory or losing as a result. We have ended up with 21 different heroes so lots of diverse characters with their own unique abilities. We wanted to have a big cast of heroes and we were really interested in exploring the shooter space. We wanted to make a team-based shooter that revolved around heroes,” senior game designer Michael Chu says.
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