Blizzard Entertainment is the studio that brought us the hugely popular strategy game World of Warcraft. After announcing that they will be releasing a documentary film about the game, Blizzard has made it into the tech news again, this time with the announcement of their first game in more than 17 years, called Overwatch.
The upcoming Blizzard game called Overwatch is a first-person shooter game, which makes it Blizzard’s first squad-based multiplayer game. Overwatch takes place in a very stylized sci-fi planet Earth, with all kinds of futuristic maps set in hologram lit cities like London, and landmarks like Egyptian bazaars. There are similar elements from previous Blizzard games like the MMO Titan (which was never released on the market) but Overwatch is a totally different game, in esthetics and story.
The Overwatch players can choose from a selection of characters that cover different genders, nationalities and abilities. For example, one of the characters that can be chosen as a player is an English pilot who can teleport himself in different places, a very big German soldier, a Japanese mercenary or an Indian architect woman. In an official statement, Blizzard said that with the new Overwatch game they wanted their players to be “equally represented” by the games diversity.
Overwatch has 12 different characters so far and the team players can combine the powers and gain an advantage. Players will have to compete in teams made of 6 players, something Blizzard described as “pick-up-and-play first-person shooter”, that will give the players an “emphasis on accessibility and pure fun.” Some compared the new Overwatch game to Team Fortress 2 by Valve, mixed with the talent for creating amazing fantasy visuals of Blizzard.
The CEO and cofounder of Blizzard said in a statement that:
“Overwatch is our take on a vibrant, near-future universe with amped-up characters and action-packed team-based gameplay. With every new Blizzard game, we look at our favorite aspects of a genre and put our own spin on things. Our goal with Overwatch is to create an awesome FPS experience that’s more accessible to a much wider audience while delivering the action and depth that shooter fans love.”