Blizzard Unveils First-Person Shooter Overwatch

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Blizzard Unveils First-Person Shooter Overwatch

For the first time in 17 years, Blizzard has announced an entirely new property, and it’s a first person shooter. Yes, you read that right. Blizzard, the fantasy MMO powerhouse behind World of Warcraft and Starcraft, is coming out with a shooter. And you know what? It looks really good.

The game is called Overwatch, and it’s a team-based shooter which follows a group of Earth’s-mightiest-heroes-turned-mercenaries as they blast and backstab their way through completing objectives. Think Team Fortress 2 if Pixar did the art and they took out all the bumper cars and silly hats.

12 playable characters have been announced so far to fill out Blizzard’s suggested roles on a team – Support, Tank, Offense and Defense. And you’ll need balance, because this isn’t a game that lets you skate by on pure firepower.

“We wanted to give players other things to do than put crosshairs on targets,” Jeff Kaplan, Blizzard’s vice president, said at a BlizzCon panel this weekend. “We know not everyone is great at that, and that’s what drives a lot of people out of other shooters.”

And no, for those of you who were curious, this isn’t a rebranding of Project Titan. That’s definitely still dead. But some of its DNA lives on – Blizzard’s senior vice president for story and franchise development, Chris Metzen, told PC Mag) that Project Titan naturally morphed into Overwatch.

So if you want to see what it feels like to defend a near-future earth as a cybernetic gorilla named Winston, or a nature-loving robot who just so happens to transform into a stationary turret, Overwatch is probably for you.

Signups for the beta are open on the Overwatch website, and the beta should make its debut sometime in 2015.

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