Blizzard Announces Overwatch, a First-Person Shooter

Today at Blizzcon, Blizzard announced its first new franchise in 17 years: Overwatch. It's a first-person shooter, a type of game Blizzard hasn't made before. It seems to be based on team deathmatch combat, with a number of characters/classes that all have different abilities. The beta test will start sometime in 2015 (you can sign-up here at the official site, unless it gets crushed by traffic). Game director Jeffrey Kaplan (a.k.a. Tigole) said one of their big goals is to make it an approachable game in a way shooters often aren't. A cinematic trailer is available, as is a gameplay trailer. Blizzard has set up stations for players at Blizzcon to play Overwatch this weekend, so more details will be coming soon.

Comments

"Approacheable FPS"

[rodrigoandrade]

Hmmm, let's see:

- Autoaim
- Regenerating HP
- Tons of ammo
- OP weapons
- HUGE hitboxes

Thanks, I think I'll pass...

Re:"Approacheable FPS"

[halivar]

I think it's for me. I used to love FPS's, but my days of twitch play are long behind me. Last time I logged in to Counter Strike I got creamed by kids half my age (or, judging by the squeaky voices, a third). I simply don't have time to hone those skills anymore, and I doubt I ever will. This is the kind of casual game I can get into and be ok, I think.

Re:"Approacheable FPS"

[Bengie]

+9001 insightful. As much as I miss the days of doing a 180 degree turn in 1/4 a second to head-shot, with my scout, someone trying to knife me, I now jump into CS and find myself dead most of the match. This also reminds me of the days of Quake Death Matches with grappling hooks enabled. I have no idea how I used to do so well other than a lot of practice.

Re:"Approacheable FPS"

[halivar]

I don't who or what broke you so profoundly, but I hope you're ok and you get help.

YAFPS

[aBaldrich]

Let me guess, if you don't send your SSN and fingerprints you'll get locked out of your own game?

Re:YAFPS

[JMJimmy]

Let me guess, if you don't send your SSN and fingerprints you'll get locked out of your own game?

lol - too true! I just got locked out in Chinese this morning. At least they consider "trying to login" unusual behaviour for me.

Pass

[JMJimmy]

Blizzard just hasn't been the same since Activision

Re:Pass

[halivar]

They've stated on numerous occasions that Activision has nothing to do with Blizzard's internal workings. If Activision was anything like, say, EA, they would have shipped Ghost and Titan, then rolled up the shop.

Re:Another nail in the coffin...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, Blizzard has been dying for 20 years now... Another 20 years and they might gross less than hundreds of millions of dollars. That coffin's gonna need an awful lot of nails.

Reminds me of Tribes

[Hussman32]

It looks like one of the modded versions of Tribes I used to play in the late 90's. Definitely improved graphics and such, I wonder how the game play will be different. As a person who was a true Starcraft junkie, I rarely dismiss what Blizzard creates.

Re:Team Fortress

[nmb3000]

Looks like team fortress 2, albeit with less hats.

I kinda got a feel of TF2 + World of Warcraft, at least for gameplay and art direction. The energy/magic effects, armor style, and voice acting were very WoW while the combat, classes, cartoony cell-shading, and gameplay looked very much like TF2. There's a damned Gnome building a sentry gun FFS.

I'd guess it will be one of those games that's poorly received (or completely flops) because it's really just a conglomeration of ideas from previously successful games and most players will get a strong feel of "been there, done that." Whatever happens, hopefully they can avoid the horrible micro-monetization that's poisoned TF2 but knowing Activition-Blizzard that seems unlikely.

"unless it gets crushed by traffic"

[damn_registrars]

Don't humor yourselves, slashdot editors. We don't have enough traffic to take down a small conservative blog anymore, let alone a web page hosted by Blizzard. They know what they're doing, at least when they put up a website.

Have any sites gone down in the past 12 months from too much slashdot traffic? I haven't heard of any. We didn't even take down any of the small-time gun 3D printing sites, which are practically the bread and butter of this site now.

Re:"unless it gets crushed by traffic"

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. Slashdot isn't nearly the largest driver of traffic to Blizzard. The combination of self-published hype and hype from other, more widely read "news" organizations will provide the majority of readers and interested gamers.

Blizzard is such a massively popular company, they're always having trouble serving the huge influxes of traffic their new game and patch announcements generate. The article is merely remarking that this occasion will be no different.

Re:"unless it gets crushed by traffic"

[timeOday]

Since the editor did not say "slashdotted," I don't see your point.

Lots of people beyond slashdot are interested in Blizzard games.

Re:Destiny ?

[Wootery]

I suspect 'PC only' was intended to rule out consoles, not Mac.

Re:Destiny ?

[Lunix Nutcase]

A Mac is a PC and Overwatch will be released for OS X just like basically every other Blizzard game.

Re:Another nail in the coffin...

[halivar]

The D3 auction house is no more. A failed experiment, put in the grave, and the progenitor shuffled off to a lower position. The other things GP listed are not PtW. You're paying for cute visuals or for the privilege of skipping the 10 hour tutorial called level 1-89.

Re:Destiny ?

[Triklyn]

pc does actually stand for something you know. Just because it's been shorthanded to "windows" doesn't mean the original definition isn't still valid. Also, the newest definition is being delineated in the pc vs console continuum vs the pc vs linux vs mac continuum.