One, if not the, best parts of Overwatch has always been its animated shorts, whether that be for a hero release or even the rare story update. But fans have never been able to enjoy more than a fraction of its potential, and now we know why.
During an AMA with Jason Schreier in the run-up to his upcoming book Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, one curious player asked the question many of us have been wondering about for a long time now: “Any insights into why Blizzard hasn’t branched out into Movies/TV/animation?”
“The book reveals that they had series in development with Netflix for Warcraft, Overwatch, and Diablo,” Schreier says in reply. “But uh… ‘Blizzard sues Netflix for poaching Spencer Neumann’ (Blizzard’s then CFO).”
Neumann was apparently in the middle of a fixed-term agreement with Activision Blizzard when Netflix courted him in 2018. Activision Blizzard ended up terminating his contract “for violating his legal obligations to the company,” Activision told investors—he had a “no shop” clause, which in this case prohibits a person from soliciting job proposals from other companies.
There’s so much to Overwatch 2’s story that could be explored, but it’s all just left in limbo. Overwatch is kind of like an anti-story at this point. The plot can’t progress—otherwise, we’d have no game because it all relies on heroes coming back together to face Talon and Null Sector. It took eight years for the heroes to actually respond to Winston’s call to arms, which he made at the beginning of Overwatch in 2016. No one’s also allowed to die or win—imagine Ana getting locked from play because she died from old age.
The only new story shreds we ever got were when a new hero joined the roster, which would explain more about the hero’s backstory. Doomfist’s animated short is still one of my all-time favourites despite only being two minutes long. It showcases everything that would make an Overwatch 2 animated series fantastic. The world-building is already there, and you’ve got a roster of exciting and skilled characters who are all capable of some pretty spectacular fights. But according to Schreier, it looks like this is still just a pipe dream, at least for the time being, and players are understandably disappointed.
“WE LOST SO UNBELIEVABLY HARD,” a player says in response to the news, which was emblematic of the wider response. Most other players agreed that this was a massive fumble on Blizzard’s part, especially as animated shorts could provide an avenue for Blizzard to expand Overwatch 2’s story without making any permanent changes to the game.
When Overwatch 2 was released, most players, myself included, were upset over the realisation that we wouldn’t be getting the PvE that had been promised. Then, eight months ago, amid mass layoffs, Overwatch’s Lead Narrative Director Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie announced that his time on the team was over, with the rest of the narrative team also getting hit pretty hard by layoffs. So Schreier’s news is just another nail in the coffin for what Overwatch 2’s narrative landscape could have been. And it also seems like a sad indication that Blizzard may not value the very thing that sucked so many players into Overwatch in the first place: the brilliant story.