Before Overwatch was even released, Blizzard had done a wonderful job of setting the scene and lore for some of its characters. The likes of Tracer, Soldier, Genji, Hanzo, and Winston all got their own fleshed-out back stories via some fantastic animated shorts, followed by stories for Zenyatta and Bastion, and then the occasional comic release for even more narrative fuel.
It’s been a long time since we last got an animated short, but the good news is that more are on the way.
The last few days have been exciting for Overwatch fans, with confirmation of an Anniversary Event coming out of a secret event held in NYC.
Speaking to press at the event, game director, Jeff Kaplan, said more animated shorts were in the works.
“The animated shorts are probably the thing that we have the most fun making,” Kaplan said (via Polygon). “We really love working with our animation group and digging out the stories not tied to any constraints of gameplay — we can tell any stories we want.”
Kaplan said that the animated shorts were “probably” the one thing the team has the most fun making.
“We really love working with our animation group and digging out the stories not tied to any constraints of gameplay — we can tell any stories we want,” he said.
“We plan to tell more of those. We’re hard at work on more of those.”
Kaplan went on to explain that “season one” of the animated shorts ended with The Last Bastion, which presumedly means Sombra’s short out of BlizzCon 2016 was the beginning of season 2.
The only problem is that the shorts take a long time to produce, which is why the team looks at them in “seasons” format.
“That’s how we talk about them internally,” Kaplan explained. “So our first season started with ‘Recall’ [the Winston short] and ended with ‘The Last Bastion.’”
The next season is “making good progress”, Kaplan said, with characters like Pharah and Symmetra potentially in line to get more of a show in future shorts.
Back in February, Michael Chu, the lead writer on Overwatch, reached out to community queries about Overwatch‘s lore, confirming that more story content was on the way for the game’s universe.
“We’re all excited to continue to explore the world of Overwatch,” he said. “[We] are hard at work creating new story content for the year, which should hopefully start to roll out in the very near future. Stay tuned,” he said.
