BlizzCon 2017 - Overwatch: Archives
Take a look at the Behind the Scenes of making Overwatch
The Pitch
Overwatch development started in the summer of 2013
The development team is known as Team 4
Made 3 totally different game pitches, first of which was new Starcraft content
A sketch of Chris Metzen was used to inspire this new project
After the first two weeks it looked like the Starcraft project was likely to happen
The second pitch was a Chris Metzen idea, about a far remote crossroads planet for aliens
Movies, other games, and community artists are used to inspire the visual style
This was supposed to be a new class based MMO with about 9 classes
Explored the idea of having around 50 classes with very different but specific abilities
Titan had a lot of incredible art made for the project
Character art from Titan was used to make a new concept for the third pitch
After the pitch to the team, each team member was assigned to come up with 1 hero
A total of 48 hero concepts were made the very first day
A more polished pitch deck was made by Jeremy Craig to be shown to Blizzard
This was to be a global game with maps around the world
The concept art for the maps by Peter Lee were used, however this was a completely different art style
The final concept was to be pitched to Activision
The CEO stopped the pitch mid presentation, and asked to go back three slides
This was the group concept art of the Overwatch heroes
The variety, and color became hallmark of the Overwtch universe
This new project was code Prometheus
Was given permission to develop Core Combat for the greenlight gate
Core Combat
The core of the game was to be developed with 4 heroes and 1 map
Almost 4 million lines of the code from the Titan engine were erased
Only about 760 thousand were kept to develop into Overwatch engine
The concept was taken from Titan, but all the art was re-modeled from scratch
New Render pipeline to allow for 60 FPS on console and PC
Tech Reboot
Very first render of the engine. Tracer with her floating gloves showing
Added guns, and experimented with light
In November it was added to the Blizzard engine to have more game Physics added
Smooth camera development to make movement more organic
Heroes of Core Combat
The core combat was started in October, 2013
Reinhardt was one of the first four to be developed
Tracer, Reaper, and Widowmaker were the other three
Rocketdude later was developed into Pharah
Early play testing on Temple of Anubis
Reaper used for scale for buildings
After block levels, the map was further developed
Abilities slowly added to the game
Early animations
By February, 2014 the map was almost complete
The Core Combat was to be shown in March at a company show and tell
Announcement was planned for BlizzCon the following year
3 playable maps, and 12 heroes were needed for the announcement
Ability Design
Hanzo first had the bow implemented
Sonic Arrow
Scatter Shot
Dragon Strike was to be a moving AOE known as the caterpillar
The initial design only had 1 dragon
The final version would have 2 dragons to show the full range of the hitbox
Hero Ideation
A hockey hero was being though of as a fast moving hero
A free flight character with a flamethrower
Later became the Jetpack cat in early concept art
These ideas were though of going too far, but not within the boundaries of Overwatch
Torbjorn's early ability Claw Trap was a mine which when triggered would grab the hero and contain them
In the video Reinhard is shown as throwing his hammer
This ability was implemented to deal with Claw Trap
If he threw his hammer too far, he had to wait before attacking
This later evolved into his new E ability, which is now in the game
BlizzCon Video
This early video had Mercy with green healing animation
Early Reinhardt charge had no charge-up time
The last point, known as Robot City in King's Row was very open with multiple drops
First Mercy ultimate allowed her to heal multiple people
Winson's early ability marker was a banana
Early Volskaya had a capture point which also moved like a payload would
First point on Hanamura was initially a circular area
Symmetra's early sentries were mini Torbjorn turrets
Bastion's early ultimate was a volley of grenades
Winston's initial leap also stunned when landing
Genji started out as a melee character who was able to perch on walls
Q&A Q: Will we ever see a Titan progress video? A: There are screenshots and video of Titan, but someday they might surface.
Q: Have you considered Officer Mai skin? A: Yes, a lot of the skins are inspired by the community.
Q: Overwatch is very character driven, is there a chance of novels for the game in the future? A: Different character mediums are always being explored, such as the 2D Doomfist reveal.
Q: In the Hanzo-Genji short Hanzo can bend the path of arrow, was this ever something on the board? A: Deflect on Genjo was the closest thing, but the tech is capable of supporting this and might be part of future mechanics.
Q: Is there a cap on how far the game can go? A: The game is only as good as the last patch, so ideas are constantly being explored. Very inspired by Warcraft, Starcaft, and Diablo, so Overwatch is just though of as the first game.