Ever since these preliminary Overwatch cinematics made their means onto our screens, the prospect of an Overwatch animated collection has been an thrilling one. For the previous decade, rumours of such a factor have come and gone, however there should be hope.
In a latest interview, I requested Walter Kong, Overwatch basic supervisor and head of reside video games and cell improvement at Blizzard, if a TV present translation of the hero shooter might nonetheless discover its option to us. “I might not rule it out,” Kong replied.
“Each time we launch belongings, whether or not it’s a hero trailer or an occasion piece, there are all of those feedback about, ‘Hey, we’d love an Overwatch animated collection. Blizzard, what the hell? When’s that occuring?’ Kong continued. “So we definitely hear that and I feel that it’s not an enormous stretch to consider that there could be a whole lot of demand for that kind of content material. So definitely, no, I will not rule out that someday sooner or later there might be different storytelling experiences within the Overwatch universe.”
Blizzard truly did attempt to get animated exhibits based mostly on its video games off the bottom, however these efforts failed. In 2024, Play Good: The Rise, Fall, and Way forward for Blizzard Leisure writer Jason Schreier revealed that StarCraft, Overwatch, and Diablo have been due the Netflix adaptation remedy, however then Blizzard sued Netflix for poaching the corporate’s Chief Monetary Officer. In early 2019, former Blizzard CFO Spencer Neumann was fired after breaching his contract to turn out to be CFO of Netflix. It appears this dispute was on the coronary heart of the tip of these Netflix diversifications.
With Overwatch presently celebrating its tenth anniversary, Blizzard revealed that over 4.4 billion matches have been performed in that point, however a starvation for story nonetheless stays. This 12 months noticed a rethink in how the developer is approaching narrative, with year-long arcs now being advised via a number of seasons. Kong admitted that the studio has all the time needed story to be a giant a part of Overwatch, however bit off greater than it might chew again in 2016.
“I feel we acquired the sense that there was this need to know extra concerning the story of Overwatch, as a result of we had fairly just a few of the cinematic items launched earlier than launch,” he defined. “I feel they helped set up that form of emotional resonance previous to the video games launch, however what we weren’t ready for was with the ability to help so many ambitions. I feel very early on we knew that we needed the sport to have an ongoing launch cadence to it and you do not know how onerous that is going to be till you truly do it.”
“After which we additionally had the ambition to ship some narrative, some story missions within the recreation as we confirmed in 2019 at BlizzCon,” Kong continued. “I feel we actually underestimated the extent of sources essential to hit with all of that ambition. And I might say that by the point that I stepped into the GM position within the latter a part of 2021, it was clear to me that there was an excessive amount of to work on and I needed to make some prioritization selections. Again then we had been in a little bit of a content material drought and I made a fairly clear name to prioritize getting again to the supply of reside recreation content material within the PVP recreation, after which I feel that’s actually the story of why we shifted to that Overwatch 2 mannequin.”
“We did give it a strive when it comes to resuming improvement of the story missions and releasing the primary chapter in Season 6 of 2023. We did get the sign again from gamers that it actually wasn’t resonant and I feel that is after we made the choice to focus our sources on the core PvP expertise and actually have stronger definition of what the sport could be that we’d serve the gamers that we had they usually have been having fun with that particular expertise.”
Past story, although, Kong has ambitions for Overwatch to unfold its wings additional than the PvP expertise that the world is rooted in. Clear indicators of this may be seen within the latest collaboration between Blizzard and Epic to convey its heroes into Fortnite, a deal initiated by Kong himself.
“I went to Epic, and a part of my historical past is that I used to be at Epic from 2018 to 2020, and I labored on the Fortnite workforce on the time, and I simply noticed firsthand the constructive pleasure and power that would come from shocking collaborations,” Kong revealed. “It was one thing that was constructive for Fortnite in addition to the companions, the collab companions and I felt that the time was proper to simply convey a bit of pleasure to the general franchise and maybe expose our heroes to some new audiences. Rapidly we felt that our heroes could be offered in a really constructive means and because the work developed, that feeling acquired bolstered and general we have been very, very pleased with how the collaboration delivered.”
It was a very long time coming, stated Kong, who harboured long-held needs for Overwatch’s most beloved characters to exist outdoors of their hero shooter bubble. “That has been the ambition just about from the start, however I felt that it couldn’t be finished till the core recreation expertise of Overwatch was at a sure stage of well being and skill to serve our gamers was on the proper place,” Kong added.
“I did not assume that pushing on these kind of alternatives prematurely could be the correct factor to do. I am very pleased with the leaders on our workforce and the power and fervour they bring about to main the sport, which meant that I might spend extra time seeking to the long run and dealing on initiatives that take a very long time to completely notice. I might say that we’re seeing a few of that early work come to fruition, however there’s much more of it that I nonetheless wish to full and nothing that I ought to actually discuss proper now.”
Might a kind of issues be the aforementioned animated collection? We’ll simply have to attend and see. For now, Kong is “pleased with the place the sport is at this time,” after Overwatch ditched the two and refocused its efforts on what made it the smash hit it as soon as was. Blizzard shall be hoping that momentum retains up over the following months and years.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can primarily be discovered skulking round open world video games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing on the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Comply with him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.