Hi! It’s Annie!
Not too long ago I wrote specifically about the ‘Overwatch’ character development we received in the shorts uploaded to Youtube. Because the shorts are amazing. Seriously, if you haven’t looked them up do yourself a favor and watch them. Disney movie quality right there. In that post, I may have mentioned how I really really want to see more story for most, if not all, of the Overwatch characters or maybe even a movie. At that point I was aware that ‘Overwatch 2’ would eventually be coming out, but I hadn’t really looked that far into it. I really should have looked into it sooner, because it seems like this game is going to make all of our storytelling dreams come true on top of maintaining all of the Overwatch gameplay we all love or love to watch. This game has no release date as of yet, but we have heard some information about it, so let’s jump into what we actually do know.
New Heroes:
It has been announced that there will be a group of new heroes, but we haven’t seen anything of most of them yet. We do have some information on two in particular. Echo is a character specifically for the new game that you might have recognized from McCree’s short among other hints here and there. We have also been introduced to Sojourn, who definitely looks badass but we don’t really have a whole lot of information about. I’m really excited to see both of these characters in action, especially Echo. Her design is great and the game developers haven’t been able to stop talking about how “game-changing” her powers will be. But I’m also looking forward to see what other heroes are on the way and just how many we’ll get. Overwatch never seems to stop with the heroes. I mean look at how recently characters like Brigitte came out! So we could see an entire army of new heroes! Hopefully they won’t give every single one of them character development unless they’re looking to make a really long game. But I’m up for that! It might make game development last longer though, which isn’t ideal.
Old Heroes:
It seems like you’ll be able to play as all of the old heroes from the original game in some form, but whether or not the story will follow all of the characters from the first game is another question entirely. Hopefully we’ll see as many of them in the story as possible. So far promotional images have shown Tracer, Winston, Mercy, Mei, Reinhardt, Brigitte, Genji, Lucio and Echo in particular so I assume we’ll see them in the actual storyline. I’d be surprised if we didn’t see some of the villains, especially Reaper, as well. But so far we don’t have any definitive information on what characters will be focused on. All we do know is that the characters most focused on from this game will be from the last game. They aren’t going to push our favorite characters aside for a bunch of new ones.
Story Mode:
And this is what we were all talking about! ‘Overwatch’ will finally be getting a story mode. Of course, that won’t be the entire game. Competition is and has always been a giant part of ‘Overwatch’, so don’t say goodbye to the old game just yet. The story mode is more of an addition than anything else. We have no idea what the story will be just yet, all we know is that they are looking to take inspiration from and extend the shorts they have already come out with. Many speculate that this game will take place immediately after Winston was attacked by Reaper and called back the old team. I think that’s a good bet considering they are calling all of their shorts from Youtube “The story so far”. If they are looking to build up on the shorts they’ve already created, I would say that any character they particularly focused an animated short on will get some sort of spotlight in the story part of the game. But also know that I say that in a biased and very hopeful way because I’m a giant D.Va fan. I can’t imagine they won’t focus on any of the fan favorites though, so I wouldn’t worry too much if your favorite character is well-loved but hasn’t featured in any teasers for ‘Overwatch 2’ yet. Most people have speculated that this game might be an ‘Avengers’ style team up, with a focus on specific characters and their individual storylines and then a battle at the end. Some say the story will be more linear than that and will center more on tracking down Reaper. Either way, any character development is good character development. Especially with the little bits of story we’ve already gotten that were all good story within themselves.
New Look:
As most sequel video games, the ‘Overwatch 2’ team at Blizzard Entertainment is looking to make the graphics better. This means that there’s a new animation design for all of the characters as well as a new world design for the environments in the game. The picture above is an example of those new graphics and it looks amazing. I really can’t wait to see all of the old characters in the new animation style!
These are all on top of new maps, the new co-op mode, as well as their improvements to levelling up characters. We also know that much more about this game will be coming out sooner rather than later as Blizzcon will be taking place in February. We’re only a couple months away! Who knows? We might even get a game release rather than just a release date! But that might just be wishful thinking. Still, according to a “leak” that may or may not be true, that could be exactly what happens. Don’t we all wish. I’m just hoping for plenty more character content, especially for D.Va, and more exciting gameplay to watch the Esports world compete with. I love everything about the announcement for this game, but I’m absolutely in love with the idea of more character content. Can February come any faster?
See you across the pond!
Sincerely, Annie
Oreos & Peanut Butter 