Part of what keeps bringing people back to Blizzard games is the story and worlds they create. People rushed out to play World of Warcraft because they had experienced the story or Warcraft 3 and were anxious to jump in and be a part of picking up where it left off. We wanted to march right up to Northrend and rip Arthas off the frozen throne. Deckard Cain hadn't spoken a word to us in over 10 years, but as soon as we heard him in the reveal cinematic, we couldn't wait to return to Sanctuary and wipe out demons in Diablo 3. Blizzard has a history of creating heroes and villains that we genuinely care about. We become invested in Kerrigan's mission of vengeance against Mensk and Zeratul's quest for redemption among the Protoss. So imagine my joy when Chris Metzen announced a new IP at Blizzcon 2014. A new story to watch unfold, and this time I get to be there from the beginning. I was too young to fully grasp the story of early Warcraft and Diablo games. I barely grasped the original Starcraft campaign. Sure, I can look into all those stories now, and replay through them if I want to, but that's much different than being there from the beginning. You get to witness all the twists and turns and see all the mysteries revealed along with the rest of the world. And that is really exiting to me.
What we know so far:
We got a glimpse at the backstory for Blizzards new IP at the Overwatch Unveiled panel at Blizzcon. The game takes place in a "highly fictionalized version of future earth". The exact distance in the future that everything takes place is a little fuzzy at this point, but I'm sure it will be revealed in detail. The game we play takes place 60 or so years in the future. 30 years prior to that there was some kind of robot uprising. Because future = robots. I blame Amazon. Anyway, the Omnics (robots of the future) went haywire and start attacking human civilization. The world's response was to create a counter force to combat and defeat the Omnics. This task force was Overwatch. We don't know the reason for the uprising, but we do know that it was ended by Overwatch and it's agents. Overwatch stood as a global peacekeeping operation until a few years before our game begins, when they were mysteriously shut down. We jump in as Winston, the giant talking Ape, is trying to put Overwatch back together, and former agents and enemies pick sides and fight against one another to fulfill or prevent their objectives. Other than that, we only have character profile pages on Blizzard's official site to provide us with anything else. I urge you to take the time to read through each character's profile. The bit of information they give definitely helps to give some personality to the character's. There are even a few hints about what side of Overwatch each of them may end up on.
How are we getting lore?:
Both Chris Metzen and Jeff Kaplan have said publicly that we won't be seeing a campaign for Overwatch. I believe them, and that would normally concern me. For example, I am awful at Starcraft. But I play through every campaign simply for the chance to see what the story has to offer. But in the past few years, Blizzard has blown me away with what they are able to do outside of games to deliver story. In World of Warcraft they gave us the Burdens of Shaohao during Mists of Pandaria, and prior to the release of Warlords of Draenor, we got Lords of War. Both of these series gave us background and insight into segments of story not easily delivered in a traditional MMO. The art, the narration, everything just knocked right out of the park. I can easily see something similar done for Overwatch. However, thats not how I think we will get most of our story.
A few months ago, Chris Metzen did a podcast interview with Scott Johnson of The Instance. It wasn't a promotion of anything, just two guys chatting about influences, life, fatherhood. Give it a listen. In the interview, Metzen talks about how big of an influence Marvel was for him growing up. Heroes doing battle and saving the world. Overwatch taps into the super hero genre like none of their previous games has before. Like Warcraft draws from Tolkein, Overwatch draws from Marvel. Heroes have special powers and abilities, and they are forced to team up to defeat the big bad. It's my prediction that a majority of our Overwatch story will be told the same way. Comics. The characters are appropriately overdone in terms of personality. Tracer is more stereotypically British than necessary. It may not need to be that way for gameplay, but it definitely helps it to come across being read off a page. If only Blizzard had a relationship established with a comic company....
Chris Metzen has been writing on the Transformers comics by IDW since 2012. This is independent of Blizzard, but if anyone can sell IDW on a new comic series, Metzen can. Hell, he sold most of us on a time-travel story for Warlord of Draenor right? I think we will see some information regarding a comic series for Overwatch by the end of the year, and for it to release in 2016 leading up to the games official release. I could be wrong. We could see a full blown TV show or just a batch of cinematics released independently by Blizzard. But, comics are where I'm placing my bet.
Either way, however we get our lore delivered, I'm ready. I can't wait to get wrapped up in another world that I can jump into and enjoy on my own. It can't come soon enough. Feel free to comment if you think I'm crazy, think I'm right on the money, or if you think there's a better way. I am always down for a conversation on this stuff.
Until next time, thanks for reading
Chris
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