Originally intended as a PR stunt for Overwatch , it ended in a car accident – a cosplayer crashed his truck into another car.
Soldier: 76 rams into another car
This is certainly not what Blizzard had in mind. At this year’s PAX East, there was a small cross-promotion with Uber, where some cosplayers were supposed to escort lucky winners from a hotel to PAX. The performers were dressed in costumes of Overwatch characters and drove quite large, eye-catching vehicles – after all, they wanted to promote the game.
Unfortunately, a cosplayer dressed as Soldier: 76, along with his Ford F650 Supertruck, had an accident and crashed into another car. To make matters worse, Randy Pitchford from Gearbox, who is working on the competitor game Battleborn, appeared shortly after. After making sure that no one was injured, he took a few pictures of the scene.
Here’s a photo I just took of the monster truck pulled up onto the sidewalk next to the car that got hit. pic.twitter.com/h5MQD7VKkF
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) April 23, 2016
But what can you say about that? Soldier: 76 is indeed a true outlaw. Although from our (German) perspective, it is also incomprehensible how someone can even drive a car in this costume, where visibility and freedom of movement are clearly restricted.
The #overwatch monster truck got in a car accident ? #PAXEast2016 hope blizz got insurance @Blizzard_Ent #rekt pic.twitter.com/vB7uuLxmoL
— Ana Rivera (@nuii37) April 22, 2016
It wasn’t as bad for the chosen ones who were supposed to be brought to PAX after all – as there was also a second “Soldier 76” driving fans in his vehicle across Boston to PAX. So there was no need to switch to Tracer or D.Va, who were also on site. That would have surely been terrible…
True to the motto “any advertising is good advertising,” this definitely drew a bit of media interest. Therefore, despite the accident – or perhaps precisely because of it – the whole action was probably a success.
For more news and articles related to Blizzard’s hero shooter, you can find them on our Overwatch game page.
