Overwatch (video game)

A screenshot from Overwatch while in-match. The player (playing Tracer) and their allies are indicated in blue, while the opposing team is in red. The character's health bar is shown on the bottom left, their primary skills and attacks are shown on the bottom right, and their progress towards their ultimate ability is shown in the bottom center.

Overwatch is an online team-based game generally played as a first-person shooter. The game features several different game modes, principally designed around squad-based combat with two opposing teams of six players each. Players select one of over two dozen pre-made hero characters from one of three class types: Damage heroes that deal most of the damage to attack or defend control points, Tank heroes that can absorb a large amount of damage, and Support heroes that provide healing or other buffs for their teammates.[lower-alpha 1] Each hero has a unique skill kit, defining their intrinsic attributes like health points and running speed, their primary attacks, several active and passive skills, and an ultimate ability that can only be used after it has been charged through dealing damage to enemies and healing allies. Players can change their hero during the course of a match, as a goal of Overwatch's design was to encourage dynamic team compositions that adapt to the situation. The game's genre has been described by some journalists as a "hero shooter", due to its design around specific heroes and classes.[2][3]

The game features game modes for casual play, competitive ranked play, and for supporting esports competitions including Blizzard's Overwatch League. These modes generally are centered around sequentially securing control of points on the map, or escorting a payload between points on the map, with one team attacking while the other defends. Other modes set aside for casual matches include solo and team deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and unique modes run during various seasonal events. More recent updates have enabled users to craft their own game modes with a limited set of scripting tools. New characters and maps have been added regularly to the game since launch, expanding the original hero roster from 21 to 32 by April 2020. Regardless of winning or losing a match, players gain experience towards a player level, and on gaining a new level, receive loot boxes that contain cosmetic items that they can use to customize the appearance of the hero characters but otherwise does not affect gameplay. Loot boxes can also be purchased through microtransactions.[4]

The backstory to Overwatch is described through animated shorts and other information distributed by Blizzard in promoting the game.[5][6][7]

Overwatch is set sixty years into the future of a fictionalized Earth, thirty years after the resolution of what is known as the "Omnic Crisis."[8] Before the Omnic Crisis, humanity had been in a golden age of prosperity and technology development. Humans developed robots with artificial intelligence called "Omnics", which were put to use to achieve economic equality, and began to be treated as people in their own right. The Omnic Crisis began when the worldwide automated "omnium" facilities that produced them started producing a series of lethal, hostile robots that attacked humankind. Initially, individual countries responded with various programs: the United States developed its Soldier Enhancement Program to produce elite fighters, for example, while Germany assembled the knight-like Crusaders. When these efforts failed to ward off the Omnics, the United Nations quickly formed Overwatch, an international task force combining these individual programs to combat this threat and restore order.[9]

Two veteran soldiers from the Soldier Enhancement Program were put in charge of Overwatch: Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. Though Overwatch successfully quelled the robotic uprising and brought many talented individuals to the forefront, a rift developed between Reyes and Morrison. Morrison was made the leader of Overwatch while Reyes was given charge of Blackwatch, Overwatch's covert operations division, fighting terrorist organizations like Talon, a group that appears to be trying to start a second Omnic Crisis, and Null Sector, a group of Omnics that revolted against the society that persecuted Omnics following the first Crisis.[9] Overwatch continued to maintain peace across the world for several decades in what came to be called the "Overwatch Generation" as the team gained more members, but the rift between Morrison and Reyes intensified. Several allegations of wrongdoing and failures were leveled at Overwatch, leading to a public outcry against the organization and in-fighting between its members, prompting the UN to investigate the situation. During this, an explosion destroyed Overwatch's headquarters in Switzerland, purportedly killing Morrison and Reyes among others. The UN passed the Petras Act, which dismantled Overwatch and forbade any Overwatch-type activity.[9]

Overwatch is set six years after the Petras Act; without Overwatch, corporations have started to take over, fighting and terrorism have broken out in parts of the globe, and there are signs of a second Omnic Crisis occurring in Russia. The intelligent gorilla Winston, a former member of Overwatch, decides to begin reforming Overwatch to protect the peace once again despite the Petras Act, with the team members recruiting old friends and gaining new allies in their fight.[10] It is revealed that Reyes and Morrison were not killed in the explosion resulting from their battle: Morrison became a masked vigilante known as "Soldier: 76", who is trying to uncover the reasons why Overwatch was shut down, while Reyes joined Talon and became "Reaper", a terrorist disguised as Death.

Lead director Jeff Kaplan

Overwatch came about in the aftermath of Blizzard's decision to cancel the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Titan in 2013, a project that had been in development for about seven years. While most others assigned to the project were transferred to other departments within Blizzard, a small team of about 40 people, led by director Jeff Kaplan, were tasked to come up with a new concept for a game in a few months. After some brainstorming, they came onto the idea of a hero team-based shooter, building upon the success of games like Team Fortress 2 and multiplayer online battle arenas. They started with assets developed for Titan to demonstrate the proof-of-concept and were greenlit to build out the full game, the first new intellectual property that Blizzard had developed since StarCraft.[11][12]

The intra-company experience of Titan's cancellation served to help drive the narrative and setting. They created an optimistic vision of the near-future, some decades following the Omnic Crisis and the formation and collapse of the peacekeeping Overwatch group. This allowed them to create a diverse cast of characters, including non-human ones, and colorful settings from around the globe.[13] The Overwatch team continues to support the game through free updates, the introduction of new characters, maps, game modes, cosmetic items, seasonal events, and external media to support the game's narrative, as well as continuously tuning how the individual heroes play by monitoring meta-game statistics and user feedback.[14]

Overwatch was formally announced at the BlizzCon event on November 7, 2014; the game was playable during the event to all attendees, with fourteen characters available to select from.[15] During this event, Blizzard released a cinematic trailer and an extended gameplay video for the game.[16][17] A month after the BlizzCon event, in December 2014, Blizzard published character introduction videos to its YouTube channel and followed up on this May 2015 by posting weekly videos of game footage and character highlights.[15]

A closed beta period for Overwatch across all three platforms began on October 27, 2015.[18] The closed beta was put on "extended break" in December and brought back in February 2016.[19] Following the March 2016 release announcement, Blizzard announced an open beta period from May 5 to 9 for any registered user of the Battle.net client.[20][21] The open beta proved popular with Blizzard reporting over 9.7 million players participating,[22] and as a way of showing thanks, extended the open beta period by one extra day.[23]

In the week before release, Blizzard arranged to have three giant-sized boxes (approximately 15 feet (4.6 m) tall) of various Overwatch heroes, as if being sold as packaged action figures, put on display across the globe at Hollywood, Paris, and Busan, South Korea.[24][25][26] The displays were created by Alliance Studios, led by Steve Wang, who has collaborated with Blizzard before on past projects, and Eddie Yang.[27] After planning the design of the sculptures in January 2016, teams across the world, including Droga5, Scicon, Stratasys and Egads, raced to print, finish and assemble the works in time for the game's release.[28] Propelled by Overwatch, Blizzard had over 50% of the American advertisement share among gaming industry brands from May 16 to June 15, 2016.[29]

Overwatch was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on May 24, 2016. Blizzard allowed retailers to sell physical copies of the game a day before help players prepare for the servers' launch.[30][31]

Two special editions of Overwatch were released alongside the base game. The Origins Edition, available both as a downloadable and retail product, includes the base game and five additional character skins, as well as other bonus items for other Blizzard games via Battle.net.[32] The Collectors Edition, only available as retail, includes the Origins Edition content as well as a statue of Soldier: 76, one of the playable characters, along with the game's soundtrack and a source book.[33]

In honor of its first anniversary in 2017, Blizzard released a digital Game of the Year edition of Overwatch. It includes all content from the Origins Edition, in addition to ten free loot boxes.[34] Blizzard has expressed interest in supporting cross-platform play between console systems in the future, though has no plans for Windows-supported cross-play due to the precision advantage of keyboard-mouse controls over controller-based ones.[35][36]

The Nintendo Switch version of the game, entitled Overwatch: Legendary Edition, was announced during the September 2019 Nintendo Direct, was released in North America and Europe on October 15, 2019,[37] and is scheduled for release in Japan on November 29, 2019. The Switch version, developed by Iron Galaxy, includes support for the console's gyroscopic controls for some actions, such as controlling Junkrat's Rip-tire, and maneuvering Wrecking Ball in his spherical form.[37][38][39] The version is equivalent to the existing version of the game on other platforms, including all heroes, maps, and game modes, although Switch players will not be able to participate in the game's current Competition season as to give players a chance to adjust to the console's controls before introducing ranked play.[40] The version has a game case for retailers in North America and Europe but does not include a physical Game Card, featuring a download code instead.[41]

Overwatch was not developed with any dedication towards esports, focusing on "building a great competitive game" first and foremost, according to Morhaime, though they recognized that the game had potential as an esports game through internal testing.[74] Although Blizzard had success with committing to esports with the development of Starcraft II, they had found that "it's dangerous to be overly committed to esport too early in the lifespan of the game," according to Kaplan instead seeing how the community developed this over time as they saw from Hearthstone.[75] Kaplan stated that while esports was not a design goal, they included and planned for features for the game to support the competitive community.[75] This included the introduction of the game's competitive mode some months after the game's launch after seeing how players took towards Overwatch; Blizzard saw the ladder-approach they used as a means for skilled players to reach high ranks as to be noticed by esport team organizers.[74] Dan Szymborski writing for ESPN stated that Overwatch was poised as the next big esport for having a sufficiently different look and playstyle from established esports games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Call of Duty, enough variety in maps and characters, and strong support from Blizzard to maintain the game for a long time.[76] Bryant Francis writing for Gamasutra noted the speed and short match times of Overwatch make the game highly favorable for viewership, further supporting the game as an esports title.[77]

Just before the game's release, PC Gamer writer Stefan Dorresteijn contacted professional esports players and hosts for their opinions. Longtime esports host Paul Chaloner stated that "[Overwatch] needs a much better spectator system," going on to elaborate, "Right now, it's incredibly difficult for commentators and viewers to see the skills of the players: who used their ultimates and how did they interact? Who is on cooldown and who has changed hero?"[78] Fellow esports player Seb Barton and Michael Rosen criticized the game's map designs and game modes; Barton remarked that "the game modes are a little hit and miss," adding that "King of the hill [Control] is super exciting and fast-paced but then you have the payload [Escort] maps, which are just a snoozefest for everyone involved."[78] Rosen expressed a need for tweaking to the maps used for the control game mode, as they are "just too prone to the snowball effect. The moment the attacking team captures the first control point they don't just have the momentum but also the last advantage for the second and final capture point."[78]

The first organized, prize-winning competitions for Overwatch started in mid-2016, a few months after launch. The esports organizer ESL held the first international Overwatch competition in August 2016, called Overwatch Atlantic Showdown.[79] The competition used four open qualifiers beginning in June, followed by regional qualifiers and then a final online qualifier. Eight teams then competed for a six-figure prize in the finals to be held at Gamescom 2016 from August 20–21.[80] Turner Broadcasting's ELeague announced the first Overwatch Open tournament, starting in July 2016, with a total prize pool of $300,000, with plans to broadcast the finals on Turner's cable channel TBS in September 2016.[81] In November 2016, Blizzard hosted their own Overwatch World Cup, allowing users to vote for teams to represent their nation or region, with finals taking place during their BlizzCon event.[82] Overwatch grew increasingly in South Korea since it was released. It topped gaming cafes in Korea in terms of player count, surpassing that of League of Legends.[83] The game influenced the creation of an esports tournament in the region, under the brand APEX, which was shut down in January 2018,[84] replacing these and other regional tournaments with the structured Overwatch Contenders, which serves as a minor league to the Overwatch League. To support viewership of its professional competitions, Blizzard released a companion Overwatch application in November 2018 that gives viewers a means to watch matches through a spectator mode.[85]

Before its release, Overwatch experienced a period of pre-launch attention not typically expected; Game Revolution noted that "[Overwatch's] reputation has quickly permeated through cyberspace, attracting attention from people who may not traditionally put down $40 to $60 each time a new first-person shooter releases."[106] The game's open beta, which attracted 9.7 million players, was very heavily covered by the media.[107]

Overwatch received "universal acclaim" upon release, according to review aggregator Metacritic.[90][91][92] IGN's Vince Ingenito praised the game's characters and maps, writing "Overwatch takes just about every possible opportunity to make its cast and locales seem like people and places rather than puppets and scenery." Ingenito added that the game has a "strong online experience that gets you into games quickly and reliably."[99] The Verge's Andrew Webster praised Overwatch and previous titles Titanfall and Splatoon as "friendly online shooters" that have room for both new and casual players who may not desire to master the game but can still compete fairly with others, and for expert players that can utilize the various heroes to adapt to the dynamic tactics of the game.[108] Webster went on to cite the atmosphere of Overwatch as a reason for the game's approachability, writing, "The first thing that makes Overwatch's world appealing and approachable is, well, its world. This isn't the dour brown-and-grey shooter you might be used to. Instead, it's bright and colorful, with a cast of characters that's eclectic and diverse."[108] Caty McCarthy of Kill Screen echoed similar thoughts, writing "When playing Overwatch, the player is absorbed by its radiating positivity. It's a world filled with lively color and energetic, playful competition, much like Nintendo's creative kid-friendly ink-shooter Splatoon."[109] Mike Minotti of VentureBeat commending the team-based gameplay, the game's diverse character roster, and colorful settings, as well as the unlockable cosmetics earned through level progression and the smooth server connection.[110] Referencing its similarities to Team Fortress 2, Minotti confirmed that "[Overwatch has] distinct classes, the team- and objective-based combat, and a bright, cartoon-like art style," and that "Overwatch certainly takes plenty of inspiration from Valve online shooter series," but opines that "[Overwatch is] just better."[110] Daniel Tack of The News & Observer positively received the game, expressing that "no matter what happens – win or lose – you're going to have fun," adding that "the game's strength lies in its simplicity and polish."[111] Tack went on to praise the game's characters, writing "Unforgettable characters are the lifeblood and driving force of Overwatch."[111] The Denver Post's Hugh Johnson lauded the game for its emphasis on characters, rather than focusing on traditional first-person shooter tropes, such as weapon load-outs and incremental level upgrades.[112] Johnson went on to insist that the characters are balanced writing, "The big question with class-based shooters like these is whether or not the characters are balanced," expressing that "some characters are naturally better, but no character is so overpowered that their mere presence spells doom for their opponents."[112] In June 2016, Vulture's Joshua Rivera listed Overwatch as one of the "best video games of 2016 (so far)," writing, "It's hard to separate Overwatch the game from Overwatch the phenomenon—and why bother, both are fascinating."[113]

The online magazine Inverse, while expressing an overall positive reception for the game, pointed out the balance of McCree, teams composed of only one character, issues with matchmaking, and the Play of the Game as problems that should be fixed by the game's development team.[114] Gabe Gurwin of Digital Trends, directed criticism at Blizzard, for their decision to exclude the story from the game, which left players "with a great game, a great story, and no way to reconcile the two."[43]

Shortly after the game's competitive play mode was released, Kotaku's Nathan Grayson stated that "Overwatch's competitive mode [is not] all that bad, for how new and unpolished it is," but opined that "high-stakes competition and toxicity tend to go hand-in-hand, and Overwatch's competitive mode already has an ugly toxic stain." Grayson concluded his piece with "Overwatch is, most of the time, a feel-good team game. Introducing high-stakes competition with a muddled message about the importance of individual skill drags the game into confused, oftentimes negative territory. If Blizzard wants this thing to work, they're gonna have to figure out a competitive framework that's true to Overwatch's spirit, rather than just the spirit of competition."[115] Kaplan acknowledged that with the introduction of competitive mode that the whole of the Overwatch community has become more toxic, and they are continually adapting elements behind the scenes to help deal with aggressive players more responsibly, while trying to promote more enjoyable matches.[116]

Cosplay of various Overwatch characters at New York Comic Con 2016

Overwatch's fan base has been noted to be generally kind and supportive; Daniel Starkey of Wired wrote, "where many fresh games struggle with an endless stream of player complaints and developer-prodding, Overwatch's community is vivacious and jubilant."[16] A gamer with cerebral palsy publicly praised the game's customizable controls, which let him make his first snipe in a video game.[209][210] One of Blizzard's artists, Roman Kenney, drew concept art based on one player's daughter's original Overwatch character design.[211] Blizzard altered one of the game's maps to include a tribute to an avid Chinese fan of the game who died from injuries while trying to stop a motorcycle theft on the day before the game's public release.[212]

Blizzard has encouraged fans of Overwatch to make artistic content based on the game.[213] To support this, Blizzard released the hero reference kit before release, providing official colors and costume and weapon designs for all 21 heroes present at the game's launch.[214] Fans have used these, the game's animated media, and other assets to create a large amount of content, including art,[215][216] cosplay,[217][218] and anime opening-style music videos.[219][220] Some Overwatch concepts have created internet memes such as "Gremlin D.Va", which focuses on the character D.Va, portrayed through Western gamer stereotypes.[221] In some cases, Blizzard has reciprocated these fan creations back into the game, such as an emote for D.Va, based on the Gremlin meme.[222] At the 2017 D.I.C.E. Summit in February 2017, Kaplan said that much of Overwatch's narrative is now being borne out of the game's fans, adding "We love it, that it belongs to them...We're just the custodians of the universe."[13] Kaplan recognizes that he himself is seen as an Overwatch character within the fan community, and following similar steps that Hearthstone's lead designer Ben Brode has done, has continued to engage with the fan community.[223]

Pornographic fan art of the game is popular, with Pornhub searches of Overwatch characters partaking in sexual activities spiking by 817% shortly after the release of the open beta.[224] A large amount of such pornographic fan works are created with Valve's Source Filmmaker tool and make use of the game's assets, which were ripped from the game during its closed beta and consequently spread over the internet.[225] Blizzard made efforts to remove the works.[213] Kaplan stated that while the studio does not want to infringe on anyone's freedom of expression, Blizzard is mindful that many players are not adults and would hope the community would try to keep such imagery away from them.[136]

Overwatch 2

The logo of Overwatch 2

Overwatch 2, a standalone sequel, was announced at BlizzCon on November 1, 2019. The game will maintain a "shared multiplayer environment" between it and the original Overwatch, so that the players in either game can compete together in the existing player versus player (PvP) modes, retaining all unlocked cosmetics and other features.[226] Jeff Kaplan stated that this was a major push he had to argue for this "player-first standpoint" to his superiors at Blizzard, given the current industry trend to draw in new sales.[227] All new heroes, maps, and PvP modes will be added to both games to maintain this shared environment.[228] At least four new heroes will be added, which include Sojourn, a Black Canadian Overwatch officer introduced in the Overwatch Archive seasonal events.[229] A new PvP mode, "Push", will be introduced, which functions like a tug of war, where each team is vying for control of a robot that is pushing a team's payload to the opponent's side of the map when a team controls it. Push will become part of the standard map rotation in the Overwatch League as well as be available for Quick and Competitive play.[230]

The game will have persistent player versus environment modes (PvE). These are similar to the special seasonal events, which will feature four-player cooperative missions against computer-controlled opponents. In this mode, players can gain experience for the hero they are using, and at certain experience levels, unlock new passive skills that boost the hero's current abilities, allowing them to customize how the hero plays. At least two PvE modes will be added: a story-based mission mode, where players are limited to their hero selection in replaying missions based on Overwatch's lore, and Hero missions which allow all heroes to be used in fending off waves of enemies at various locations.[226]

Overwatch 2 will run on an upgraded version of the original game's engine which allows for larger map sizes to better support the new story-based PvE elements.[226] Additionally, all of the existing heroes are getting visual redesigns for Overwatch 2, although Blizzard does not expect every hero to have theirs finished by the time Overwatch 2 launches, with twelve of the existing 31 completed at the time of the game's reveal.[229] Overwatch 2 is expected to release for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, although there is currently no set release window. Kaplan stated they were more concerned about quality of the product than timeliness of the release.[231][232] Kaplan anticipates that, ultimately, Overwatch and Overwatch 2 will merge into a single product to avoid having any engine differences affect player experience.[233]

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