STACK May 2016 Issue 139

verwatch

is Blizzard’s

inaugural venture into

the FPS market, and as

you can imagine, it’s quite an

ambitious project. The game

launches this month with a

roster of 21 vastly different

heroes, each of which has a

different role to play in game. Don’t

let the word ‘hero’ deter you – this is

by no means a MOBA of

League of Legends

or DOTA furore. Blizzard already has

Heroes of the

Storm

– this is something entirely new.

“I think it’s a really unique experience”, says

Aaron Keller, assistant game director. “We were

committed to making the best team-based,

first-person shooter we could."

The team required to craft such an

astounding game needed to be motivated.

“A lot of the

Overwatch

team came

from the cancelled

Titan

project”, notes Keller.

“It was kind of a

devastating moment in our lives to go through

something like that. All of these people came

together and started throwing ideas around, and

it was weird how quickly it coalesced into this

idea for a hero-based, team-based shooter, set a

short time into Earth’s future. Everybody rallied

around it”.

Many of

Overwatch

’s maps are based around

real-world locations – King's Row in London,

Hanamura in Japan, or even the map flat-out called

Hollywood. Keller himself was heavily involved

with the video game actualisation of these real-

world locations.

“We got in a lot of nit-picking arguments like,

‘Do we ever want to call something by its real

name in a world?’. We did a lot of research, but at

the end of the day, we’re not trying to completely

mimic a real world location – we’re trying to give

you the tourist’s fantasy."

We appreciate his shout-out to Down Under, as

demeaning as it may be.

Every man and their Bronze Drake has kept a finger on the pulse of

Overwatch

, the latest IP from Blizzard

Entertainment, the wonderful minds behindWorld ofWarcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft. After brewing in beta

on PC for a few months, the company are now ready to release their proprietary first-person shooter to the

world.We

were privileged enough to head over to the States and check out the game on console, as well

as chat to a few of the developers.

By Alesha Kolbe.

visit

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