Blizzard Entertainment Announces Overwatch

During today’s BlizzCon 2014 festivities, Blizzard Entertainment officially unveiled Overwatch, their first new franchise in close to 17 years. While a release date has not been confirmed as of now, the studio did announce than an open beta for the game will start up in 2015.

Rather than stick to their bread and butter, Overwatch represents a brand new direction for the team at Blizzard. Taking a cue from the likes of Team Fortress 2, the game is a squad-based multiplayer shooter. Grouped into two teams of six, players will be tasked with either defending or attacking either a payload or a base.

At the start of each round, players will be able to choose a hero to play as from a wide and varied roster. Each available hero can be classified into one of four categories: Offense, Defense, Tank and Support. You can find clips of each hero over on the official Overwatch website, but some of my early favorites include Winston, the hyper-intelligent gorilla, and Mercy, the Valkyrie-suit wearing medic.

After the unfortunate mess that was Titan, I was not expecting Blizzard to have a new IP ready to show already. However, consider me excited about this, as the premise seems like a blast, and the early gameplay clips look promising. Sure, another team-based shooter isn’t exactly original, but after their litany of hits, the studio has more than earned my trust.

We will continue to have coverage of Overwatch in the coming months, so stay tuned.