The Secret Goal of Overwatch’s Animated Shorts
A new Overwatch animated short debuted at BlizzCon 2017, showing the tragic tale of why Reinhardt joined the team. If you were feeling strong emotions by the time it ended, that’s by design, according to Lydia Bottegoni, SVP of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard.
“We always say our job is to make people feel something. Feel heroic or feel sad or feel triumphant. That's our overall mission, to make you feel something, and the bigger the emotion, the easier it is to get people there,” Bottegoni said.
It's not uncommon to read comments comparing the emotional impact of an Overwatch animated short to a Pixar or DreamWorks movie. And just like those movies often earn big ticket sales, the desired effect is for gamers to get emotionally invested in a character so they'll be pumped to play the game and buy the latest content.
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USA vs Korea Made Me Believe In Overwatch Esports
Watching the USA play South Korea live at the Overwatch World Cup yesterday made me believe in Overwatch esports.
I think many people, myself included, are skeptical about the incredibly popular FPS’s competitive future. It’s been a hard game to spectate, to the point where Blizzard has openly admitted it and announced they are making changes to help Overwatch esports easier to follow.
New camera angles, including an overhead “gameboard” style view, can help clarify what’s going on, but the truly game changing improvement is team jerseys. Each team now has custom colors that stick with them, changing the look of both heroes and every ability effect to make it clearer who is using what.
How Blizzard Made the Perfect AI Cameraman for Overwatch League
As a huge Overwatch fan who didn’t really care about watching the game competitively, Blizzard’s esports spectator improvements are incredible.
Watch the video above to see what Blizzard has to say about the changes.
Instead of burying their heads in the sand and pretending Overwatch didn’t have spectator problems, Blizzard has proactively started fixing them. Team uniforms and colors are the most obvious and effective, but an improved AI camera and impressive instant replay functionality certainly help as well.
The difference is night and day, and I didn’t think something as simple as color-coded skins and abilities could make such a difference. But the increased clarity has had an immediate impact on how engaged I am in watching a match.
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth Trailer Rewind
Today we’re taking a look at the brand new cinematic trailer for the World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth expansion.
First thing we see is the Undercity, previously the capital city of Lorderon in Warcraft 3 and previous games in the series. It fell to the undead during the events of Warcraft 3 after Arthas murdered his father, the king. It’s been under horde occupation ever since and acts as the main city for the Undead race.
Next we see a ton of Horde banners all along the walls, then at 0:32, we get our first shot of Sylvannis Windrunner. Ever since Vol’jin was killed in the opening mission for the Legion expansion, she’s been the warchief of the Horde.
House of Cards: Netflix Drops Kevin Spacey
Kevin Spacey's House of Cards character could be killed off by Netflix.
According to a report from Variety, "one scenario being discussed." The show would then shift focus to Underwood's wife, Claire for its final season.
Netflix formally severed ties with Spacey, according to the Hollywood Reporter. In addition to ending Spacey's House of Cards run, Netflix is cancelling Gore, a biopic about Gore Vidal starring Kevin Spacey as the titular character.
Hands-On With Overwatch’s New Hero Moira – IGN Access
The new Overwatch hero, Moira, is extremely similar to some of the game’s other supports, but also unlike anything I’ve ever played.
She’s a mix of healer and damage dealer that immediately made me think of ana, with a purple and yellow color scheme that’s reminiscent of Zenyatta, but her actual kit sets Moira far apart from the supports before her.
Her heal, Biotic Grasp, is basically a friendly flame thrower that drains her life-saving biotic energy to heal her allies. That energy recharges overtime, but Moira can also fill it back up by using her alternate fire, a damage-dealing lock-on beam which acts a lot like a weaker version of Symmetra’s basic attack but with a much longer range.
Overwatch: Blizzard Shows Abandoned Hero Concepts
Today a BlizzCon 2017, the Overwatch team shared a bunch of concept art and gameplay images, as well as a few details about the origins of its massively popular hero shooter.
As Blizzard has discussed in the past, Overwatch was born after the cancellation of its MMO project Titan. Interestingly enough, before coming up with the idea for Overwatch, the studio had an idea for a StarCraft game.
Check out the slideshow above for a look at some concept art for early character and ability ideas, in-development gameplay footage as the Overwatch team fleshed out the game's overall design, and much more.
Stranger Things 2: Best Easter Eggs
Stranger Things 2 is packed with enough pop culture Easter Eggs to make your head spin, so we’re here to take you through the best of the bunch.
Check them all out in the slideshow below, or in the video above. Spoilers for the entire season follow!
Those are our favorite Easter Eggs and references from the season. What were yours? Let us know in the comments and if yours didn’t make the cut here, see if we included them in our breakdowns for each individual episode of Stranger Things 2.
Thor: Ragnarok’s 5 Biggest WTF Questions
The Mighty Thor has returned in Thor: Ragnarok! And he’s brought a few friends with him. But for as fun and wicked 1980s awesome as this third Asgardian film is, there are still plenty of dangling story threads and questions that we’re still puzzling over.
Of course, many of these issues may be resolved in future MCU movies… but for now, here are our 5 biggest WTF questions about Thor: Ragnarok…
Complete and utter spoilers follow, of course.
Look, Thor’s Asgardian buddies have never gotten the most extensive treatment, in part because his solo movies have had to split time between them and his Earth pals. But now that Jane Foster and the rest were jettisoned for Ragnarok, you’d think at least the Lady Sif would’ve gotten a bigger part.