Blizzard’s hugely successful team-based shooter Overwatch exploded onto the scene back in 2016, with the release of a Nintendo Switch version in October of last year making it easier for fans of FPS games on any platform to enjoy the game, and maybe even find success in the realm of competitive e-sports with it.
Taking cues from games like Team Fortress 2 and adding elements of team cooperation and class-based gameplay, it’s an easy game to learn but a difficult one to master. While we all know a few things about Overwatch, like some of its surprisingly scant lore, here are a few things about the game you may not have been aware of.
10 It Grew Out Of A Cancelled Game Called Titan
Titan was a Blizzard IP that rumors began to circulate about sometime near 2007. It was officially canceled in 2013, although rumors continued to be everywhere. While it was mourned by many Blizzard fans, it didn’t completely die because many of the environmental assets and characters from Overwatch were directly sourced from Titan. Titan was also strangely enough originally intended to be an MMO. It’s really unknown just how different Titan would have been from Overwatch considering both of them were always destined to be team-based first-person shooters taking heavy cues from the likes of Valve’s giant Team Fortress 2.
9 It Was A Part Of The Loot Boxes As Gambling Debate
Everyone who has at least one eye on the surprisingly game-related field of politics may know that recently there’s been a lot of talk about whether loot boxes constitute gambling. Not even Overwatch is above this debate. A bill was even introduced into Congress to debate the somewhat predatory practice of including somewhat random boxes full of in-game items like skins or emotes that can be purchased with real-life cash.
Aside from this, we also have currency in Overwatch that you can purchase with cash that will allow you to buy these items more specifically if you don’t just want to gamble for that super cool skin you wanted. Luckily, the argument that can be made for Overwatch is that it is all cosmetic.
8 It’s Had Its Issues With Appropriation
While we’ve seen tons of musicians, filmmakers, and artists struggle with the idea of cultural appropriation, not everyone has a huge example in gaming that they can point to. In the game, Pharah has a skin that allows her to appear in a Native American headdress, which is both historically reserved for tribe chiefs. The issue lies in that Pharah is a character of Egyptian descent. They somehow found a pretty obvious workaround in adding to the game’s canon that Pharah is not only Egyptian, but also Native American.
7 It Received 102 Game Of The Year Awards
There are plenty of games that have won Game Of The Year awards, and depending on the publication, how much does it really mean anyway? It’s not like Top 40 music is objectively the best music, or that Marvel movies are the greatest cinematic masterpieces of all time, so what do they really mean? On their own, maybe not that much. But when we look at Overwatch’s fan reception, its sales numbers, and the um… let us check… yes… 102 Game Of The Year awards for 2016, it becomes apparent that while getting one is a pretty big accomplishment, 102 is absolutely ludicrous.
6 The Model That The Sequel Is Working Under Hasn’t Really Been Tried
The format of the sequel is a bit confusing, and we’re not even sure that Blizzard is quite sure how they’re going to make this work. Overwatch 2 is slated for release sometime in the recent future and was officially announced in November of 2019. Seeing that they got their game from open beta to official release in 5 months, there’s a good chance that we could be seeing an Overwatch 2 open beta here very soon.
Which may or may not actually make a difference. What the game’s creative director James Kaplan anticipates is that eventually Overwatch and Overwatch 2 will merge into the same experience so that players of the first won’t feel alienated or unable to run Overwatch 2’s new multiplayer environment. Instead, it’s likely that the only thing we’ll see make its debut in Overwatch 2 will be a PvE mode.
5 There Are Hidden References To Plenty Of Other Blizzard Games
It’s no secret that Blizzard is the creator of tons of well-loved franchises such as Warcraft, Starcraft, World Of Warcraft, Diablo, and a few others. What would Overwatch be without the occasional reference to other games by the company? Because of this, there’s a Murlock from World Of Warcraft in a level that makes a really interesting noise when shot (it’s a Murlock noise. If you know what it sounds like, you know). There are also plenty of really fun skins such as Orisa’s Immortal skin that makes reference to some robots from Starcraft, as well as tons of others that you’ll probably be able to pick out when playing if you’re a big enough Blizzard fan.
4 It Includes A Tribute To A Fan Who Passed Away
A heroic Overwatch beta fan passed away after receiving injuries in a high-speed chase after a thief who had stolen a classmate’s motorcycle. Sadly, he never got to see the release of the official game. The Chinese authorities apprehended the thief and awarded 20-year-old Wu Hongyu a posthumous “Courageous Citizen Award”. Since the good folks over at Blizzard who were working on Overwatch heard the story, they added a memorial into the game for him. In Lijiang Tower, there’s a row of spacesuits. Behind the spacesuits, you can see the name Hongyu in Chinese, in addition to one of Mercy’s phrases “Heroes Never Die”.
3 Soldier: 76 Is Based On A Non-Blizzard Comic
A man named Chris Metzen who’s been a long-time employee of Blizzard decided a while before the release of a now-famous game called Overwatch that he wanted to work on a comic book, with the familiar name of Soldier: 76.
The comic book tells the story of a man who’s fighting in the United States Of America’s second Civil War. While it’s not exactly the lore of Soldier: 76 in-game, it’s surprisingly close to some of the reasons why Overwatch was formed as a team.
2 And That Comic Was Written By The Prolific Man Who Voiced Bastion
So that guy we just talked about who created Soldier: 76? He’s also the voice of an extremely divisive character in the Overwatch fandom, the bullet-spitting sentient turret, Bastion. As if these weren’t enough accolades for one man, Chris Metzen is also known for his work on Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Diablo, Starcraft, and pretty much any other interesting Blizzard franchise you can think of.
1 There Are Lots Of Overwatch References In World Of Warcraft
In Battle For Azeroth, World Of Warcraft’s most recent expansion, there’s a really interesting team in the Brawler’s Guild. One that goes by the name of… Ogrewatch? Oh. Okay… Gotcha Blizzard… Not too subtle are you guys? Anyway, the Ogrewatch team is made up of Stuffshrew, Hudson, and Dupree. If you can guess who these are by names alone, good job, because they’re all kind of a reach. Stuffshrew is Junkrat because Junk = stuff and a rat is a rodent. Hudson makes no sense other than the ending syllable which is almost -ston (Winston), and Dupree rhymes with McCree. Kind of.
NEXT: World Of Warcraft Classic: 10 Hilarious Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do In The Game
