Overwatch fans have been dreaming of an official animated TV series for as long as I can remember. Sure there’s plenty of stellar animated shorts, but with a narrative this good, fans want to appreciate it all in one cohesive project. But so far that’s all it’s been: A dream. Especially after word got out that Blizzard fumbled its chance at a Netflix adaptation.
But perhaps not all is lost, as in a recent interview with IGN, Overwatch’s general manager Walter Kong explained that he wouldn’t “rule out” an animated series in the future. “Every time we release assets, whether it’s a hero trailer or an event piece, there are all of these comments about, ‘Hey, we would love an Overwatch animated series. Blizzard, what the hell? When’s that happening?’
“So we certainly hear that and I think that it is not a huge stretch to believe that there would be a lot of demand for that type of content. So certainly, no, I won’t rule out that sometime in the future there could be other storytelling experiences in the Overwatch universe.
“I think we got the sense that there was this desire to know more about the story of Overwatch, because we had quite a few of the cinematic pieces released before launch. I think they helped establish that kind of emotional resonance prior to the game’s launch, but what we weren’t prepared for was being able to support so many ambitions. I think very early on we knew that we wanted the game to have an ongoing release cadence to it and you don’t know how hard that’s going to be until you actually do it.”
Overwatch’s great animated shorts didn’t just end on its release, though. Some of my all time favourites aired years after. Doomfist’s origin story, Honor and Glory, and even the recent Reign of Talon are all icons in my eyes.
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“We did give it a try in terms of resuming development of the story missions and releasing the first chapter in Season 6 of 2023,” Kong adds. “We did get the signal back from players that it really wasn’t resonant and I think that’s when we made the decision to focus our resources on the core PvP experience.”
But the tides have shifted once more. Overwatch’s recent rebrand has brought a whole new wave of stories with it. After the Reign of Talon cinematic we saw a bunch of new comics get added to the game, labelled as Story Time, which sees an Overwatch voice actor read through each comic. Then there’s Sierra’s hero trailer which also brought this overarching story to the forefront. In other words, there’s been a real effort to prioritise the overarching story.
This is all to say that it would be an excellent time for Blizzard to take Overwatch’s narrative one step further by releasing an official animated series. It fits with the new direction of “narrative first” and would be an excellent way to celebrate 10 years of amazing storytelling.
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