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Blizzard announces Overwatch, first new IP in 17 years

By James Lu - on 8 Nov 2014, 3:24pm

Blizzard announces Overwatch, first new IP in 17 years

It's been 17 years since Blizzard last launched a new franchise (Starcraft in 1998) but today at Blizzcon 2014 n Anaheim, California, the company announced a completely new IP, a Team Fortress 2 style, multiplayer shooter called Overwatch.

In introducing Overwatch, game director Jeff Kaplan told the Blizzcon crowd, "You guys know that with Blizzard games, we like to find genres and game types that we're in love with and take the best elements of those and really amplify it. You saw us do that with a strategy genre, a massively multiplayer online game, and most recently a collectable card game." Presumably, Blizzard has now done just that to Team Fortress 2, and the result is Overwatch.

The game will feature an original cast of superhero-like characters with various skills and abilities, including the mecha-suit, glasses-wearing gorilla, Winston, the angelic winged healer, Mercy, the steampunk, time travelling British pilot, Tracer, and the mysterious, duel shotgun-wielding skull-masked, Reaper. It's unknown how many characters will be in the final version of the game, but at least 12 have been shown in footage so far.

In describing the setting of Overwatch, Blizzard senior VP, Chris Metzen, said that "the story takes place something like 60 years in he future. It's far enough in the future that we have flying cars, ray guns and all the technology you'd want to have, but it's not far enough that it feels too exotic." As with most of Blizzard's recent games, Overwatch will feature a cartoony style with characters that look wouldn't look out of place in a Pixar movie.

All matches will be team-based six versus six and, like Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm game, Overwatch is designed to be very friendly for newcomers to play, with an emphasis on objectives and teamwork. To that end, Blizzard has also stated that there will be no death match mode in Overwatch. 

Overwatch is likely to be at least partially salvaged from Blizzard's cancelled Project Titan, which was long rumored to be an MMO shooter. At least one of the Overwatch heroes, Reaper, appears to have the same name and design as one of the rumored classes from Titan.

Overwatch is scheduled to enter beta in 2015. More info on Overwatch and the beta sign up form can be found at www.playoverwatch.com

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