Overwatch is more or less in the starting preparations for the closed beta version. At Gamescom, Jeff Kaplan talked about the plans for the universe in the future …
More work than actually necessary
At Gamescom, Pcgamesn had the opportunity to talk to Jeff Kaplan, the Game Director of Overwatch and former World Designer of World of Warcraft. Here, they mainly discussed the long-term plans that Blizzard has for the new shooter – and what the future might hold for other games.
“At first glance, it seems we are doing more than necessary,” he revealed in the interview, referring to the many details that can be discovered in the maps of Overwatch. Even though most players will never see these details – because they panic and shoot at enemies or jump into cover – they are very important: Overwatch is to become a complex universe that can stand up in terms of story density and complexity with Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft.
A Blizzard version of our world
“At Blizzard, we love to create worlds,” Kaplan says in the interview. “Working based on planet Earth was fantastic. It may sound strange, but we had to ask ourselves: What could we do with our planet that would be really cool?” The developers posed questions like: What is Blizzard’s version of Africa? Or of Egypt? And although not everything in the world of Overwatch is peaceful, the vision of our Earth reflects quite central problems of our time and turns them into the positive opposite.
Thus, the organization “Overwatch” is nothing but a symbol for internationalism, bringing together the greatest heroes from all around the world. The Numbani map also shows a refreshing vision of the future of Africa, which has technologically caught up with the rest of the world and even surpasses a large part of the rest of the world with this utopian city, because Ominics (robots) and humans live here in perfect symbiosis.
The future of Overwatch
While it is certainly a bit premature to already want to talk about the future of Overwatch when the game hasn’t even reached beta yet, Jeff Kaplan and his team have ambitious goals. Finding the balance between “little things that lore fans can enjoy” and “enough freedom for other games to expand the universe” is challenging. Nevertheless, they aim to achieve just that: If it were up to Kaplan, Overwatch should eventually be able to support its own MMO in the style of World of Warcraft – this is by no means an announcement nor a statement like “Blizzard is giving up on WoW,” but merely a wish for the complexity that they want to achieve with the new franchise, supported by novels, videos, and other games from possibly completely different genres.
Eventually, the Overwatch characters should also be playable in Heroes of the Storm, but “Overwatch first has to earn that.
