Blizzard reveals in a “Making of” video what the Animated Shorts of Overwatch are all about.
The Animated Shorts are one of the few and important ways for Blizzard to bring the characters of the universe closer to the players. There is hardly any story within the game. If at all, small hints can be found within a map or in the short dialogues of the heroes.
However, Blizzard wants players to have an emotional connection to the heroes and therefore continues to release comics and the Animated Shorts – especially the latter cause a lot of attention.
Also showing the scientists of Overwatch
Blizzard has now released a making-of for “Winter Awakening”. Here, the developers talk about the goals and challenges in creating such cinematics.
According to Jeff Kaplan, the story of a character and their personality are just as important as the questions “how much damage the left-click of their weapon causes”.
Winter Awakening is also one of the calmer cinematics, where there is little action. Much has been shown about the typical “soldier” characters, like Soldier: 76, Widowmaker, or Bastion – but little about the calmer heroes.
Mei is the perfect example here. A character who loses everything – friends, time, and any hope for rescue. How such a character can still become a hero is shown in the “Animated Short”.
Cortyn says: For me, the Animated Shorts are always the big highlights that I look forward to even more than a new hero or a new map. I also attribute “Pixar quality” to the videos and can’t get enough information about the heroes and the game world. A little insight into the creation process of these films was therefore very welcome.
