Since I’m here at Blizzcon and, as we speak, I’m listening to the Overwatch Panel play itself out. So I thought I’d add some detail to the trailer based on what I’ve learned so far.
First things first, Overwatch is super team based. Blizzard has announced 12 characters so far that will feature, each with their own abilities. But apparently there are more to come.
Looks like Blizzard is doing that very Blizzard thing of having two disctinct groups fighting against one another. I think this is great.
Tracer appears to be one Blizzard’s favourites. They spent a lot of time focusing on this character on the Overwatch Panel. A massive part of her skillset is the ability to ‘blink’ ala Dishonoured. I absolutely loved this mechanic in Dishonored, so I’m keen to see how it works i Overwatch.
But the crowd favourite, at least as far as I could tell, was this guy. The Gorilla scientist dude with glasses. He appears to be a melee focused character that will destroy through brute force. I’m really looking forward to finding out how all these character work at interact together.
An interesting detail: you can switch characters between games. Like if you die, you can switch to another character as you respawn. Very cool.
The game is set roughly 60 years in the future, but set on earth, which essentially means that the game’s maps are focused on super stylised versions of real places. The above looks a lot like a super-concentrated version of London. Apparently it’s called ‘King’s Row’.
This is clearly the ‘Egypt’ map. It’s called Temple of Anubis.
This is a Japan themed map. It’s called Hanamura.
Again it’s all pretty much obvious! But the art style is really ‘Blizzard’. It also manages to look and feel unique. In motion and in action the game looks like it takes the ‘team’ in Team Fortress and pushed it to its logical conclusion. It looks great and, even at this stage in its development, seems extremely polished.
A couple of people are rumbling about the game being derivative of games like Team Fortress 2 and Smite, but I think this has the potential to be pretty spectacular. The game is playable at the show, so I’ll have some hands on impressions later.
Disclosure: Mark Serrels travelled to Blizzcon as a guest of Blizzard
Comments
3 responses to “More Detail On *That* Overwatch Trailer From Blizzard”
Overwatch*
So, when do we see the hats?
Waiting for your comments Mark, play hard!
Damn thats some smooth lighting… I wonder if its their in-house engine…
Unity 4 just doesn’t do lighting that nice.. 🙁