Back in November I said I was more excited about the upcoming Overwatch animated shorts than the actual online shooter. Now that the eight-minute short teased at Blizzcon is here, I stand by that statement. This is wonderful.
Valve did some amazing things with its Team Fortress 2 character movies, but this is on a whole other level. It’s easy to imagine this short, which tells the story of why super-smart gorilla Winston reactivates the outlawed Overwatch program, as the opening minutes of a feature-length animation.
Keep an eye out for little easter eggs scattered throughout the short, like the Hearthstone screen on the computer display and those faces flying by towards the end.
The game’s still not my cup of tea, but I hope it does really well, so I can get more of this.
Comments
13 responses to “Blizzard Channels Pixar In The First Overwatch Short”
Well it tells me nothing about the game itself (and I’ve read nothing about it either, don’t even know what genre it is) but damn if that wasn’t an interesting short.
Its meant to show a bit of lore on the characters i believe.
Of course it is, and it does, it just doesn’t tell me anything about the game itself. Which is fine, it’s not supposed to.
I’m at work now and can’t watch, but I find it hard to believe that this could be better than the Tf2 shorts (especially Saxton hale’s short shorts).
It’s definitely in a different category. Calling it a Pixar short is a very accurate way to describe what it is.
I’m not much of a fan though, it’s well produced and looks great but it lacks the sardonic humor and presentation of the TF2 shorts, almost as if it was made for kids too young to play the game.
Interesting observation! I’d argue that it’s for the “kids in us” that then get to play the game, as I personally still love Pixar/etc even though I’m an adult.
Ever since seeing the Starcraft cinematics I’ve wanted Blizzard to just get on with making their own animated movies… when will they get on to that?
I can imagine them making a Starcraft movie, and then never making a sequel cause 80% of the world simply pirated the movie…
No word on a Starcraft movie yet, but the Warcraft movie is due in June. And you can guarantee that if it’s financially successful that they’ll be following up on it.
It looks really pretty, but I have no idea what’s going on.
That pretty much sums up the game too….
Can’t wait to break my wife’s heart by showing her this and telling her there isn’t more. It’ll be Firefly all over again!
Can’t stop the signal…
Shiny!
Well the game is basically TF2. 6v6 objective battles with the current game modes being king of the hill and then a territory capture followed by a payload push or just a territory capture (still in beta, release is towards the end of may). There are about 22 characters in game with more to come in the future i would guess separated into 4 classes, offensive, defensive, tank and support. It also incorporates character abilities though and ultimates much like moba games. each character has 2 special abilities and an ultimate that charges over time and faster when a player completes objectives. shaping up to be a fun game and seems these shorts and stuff will help flesh out the characters and the world therein