Overwatch is Blizzard’s first-person shooter game. Released for PS4, Xbox One and PC, it brings different classes of heroes to the MOBA style and has a great advantage still being receiving constant updates since its launch in May 2016.
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So whether you’re a veteran or a first-time sailor, we’ve prepared a list of ten trivia that you probably did not know about Overwatch. Check them out:
Overwatch was born from a canceled project
Titan was a project stolen for years by Blizzard and promised to be the spiritual successor to World of Warcraft. However, several steering issues made the game officially canceled in 2014, after seven years in development.
The good part is that some of the remaining members of the project, such as Jeff Kaplan and Chris Metzen, decided to re-use Titan’s ideas to produce a new game – a competitive online shooter with different classes of heroes. And so the Overwatch was born.
Among the concepts that were reused in the new game are the characters Tracer, Reaper, and Reinhardt, as well as the Anubis map.
Ana’s copywriter was chosen by chance
Giving voice to captain Ana Amari was the first work as a voice actor for Aysha Selim. Born in Cairo, she is director of dubbing and also performs casting and localization services for the Arabic language.
So Blizzard got in touch with Aysha to find a voice for Sniper Grandma. Only, after seven actresses were rejected, the producers considered that she fit the paper herself and asked her to take a test. She auditioned for her house and, even without having experience as a voice actor, she ended up being the chosen one.
Mei’s apology is spontaneous
One of Overwatch’s designers, Michael Chu, revealed during an event that Mei’s famous phrase, “Sorry” was not in the script.
During the recording, the voice actor Yu Zhang made a mistake and ended up apologizing in a cute way to the directors. Chu, who was accompanying the studio, said he looked at the sound engineer and asked, “Did you record it?” He said yes, and Chu said, “Then send it to me.”
Doomfist turned character only because of his name
Despite being mentioned since the first Overwatch trailer, released in 2014, Doomfist was not intended as a playable character. The initial idea was that he was only a minor character within the universe of the game, like the monk pacifist Mondatta.
In fact, the whole concept behind Doomfist was born only because the creative team found that Doomfist was a great name for a villain and decided to use it as an argument for the short. But the repercussion was such that many fans began to speculate on who would be Doomfist, which motivated the team to work on the character.
Jack Jetpack came to be considered as one of the heroes
Among the characters that were canceled during the creation phase of Overwatch is a cat that flew using a jetpack – or simply Cat Jetpack, according to the fans.
According to producer Jeff Kaplan, while promising, the team thought the character did not fit the universe of the game and scratched it off the character list. Many speculate whether the Jetpack Cat would not have given way to the D.Va, which also manipulates a robot and initially had the theme of cats rather than rabbits.
During this year’s Blizzcon, Kaplan released some images of heroes that were initially intended for the game, and among them is the Jetpack Cat.
McCree exists because of Half-Life
Far more than a tribute to the western movies, McCree only exists because the producers wanted a hero who wore a Colt Python-like revolver from the Half-Life franchise.
For producer Jeff Kaplan, the revolver is one of the most powerful and fun weapons in the Valve series, and they wanted to emulate the feeling of using Colt in Overwatch. So they thought of a Camouflage-style Clint Eastwood movie that could use the gun.
D.Va and Lucio – from the games to the real world
Before revealing some of his characters, Blizzard even spread out tips on a real treasure hunt for fans. The Shadow case was widely commented on, but there were others as well.
Before being officially announced as an Overwatch character, D.Va had an official profile on the Starcraft 2 World Championship site, including statistics similar to that of a professional gamer, which caused some confusion among fans. D.Va had also appeared on a poster on the Hanamura map.
In the same way, Lucio had a supposed album released before being revealed as the hero of the game, called Synaesthesia Auditiva. The songs can be heard on the official Overwatch website.
Blizzard paid tribute to a dead fan
In May 2016, Chinese student Wu Hongyu, 20, chased a thief who stole the bike from a college classmate. He, who also was on a motorcycle, ended up in an accident and could not resist his injuries and died.
The case happened in May 2016, the day before the release of Overwatch. Blizzard learned of Wu’s story and that he was a big fan of the game and made a beautiful tribute on the Lijiang Tower map – one of the space suits has its name and above is the phrase “Heroes Never Die.”
Overwatch has several references to animals
That developers love to put easter eggs in the games is nothing new. Except that in Overwatch it goes further. Producers have not only hidden references to movies and plays in the game universe but also to some popular anime.
Here are some examples:
- Mei’s dance emote Haruhi Suzumiya’s Hare Hare Yukai;
- The way Moira runs refers to Naruto, and one of his sprays is a reference to Akira;
- One of the phrases that Hanzo says is “Spirit of the dragon; I choose you”;
- The transition scene from the short-animated Junkertown, The Planis inspired by the opening of Cowboy Bebop;
- One of Doomfist’s phrases is a reference to One Punch Man.
Some names have curious origins
If the name Doomfist was born before the character (see above), others had to be more elaborate. Check some cases:
- The name Zenyatta came from the Zenyatta Mondatta album by the English band Police. Mondatta is the name of the Zenyatta master who was eventually killed by Widowmaker ;
- Jesse McCree is the name of one of Blizzard’s employees;
- Junkrat’s real name, Jamison Fawkes, is a reference to Guy Fawkes, a religious revolutionary who attempted to blow up the English parliament in 1605;
- Hanzo has this name because of the famous ninja Hattori Hanzo who lived in Japan during the 16th century, while Genji is inspired by the classic Japanese book The Romance of Genji;
- The pseudonym D.Va is a reference not only to usernames used by professional gamers but also to the fictitious names adopted by Korean idols. It is speculated that D.Va is a joke with the word diva and anime Evangelion.
- In the Yoruba dialect, the name of Doomfist (Akande Ogundimu) can be translated as “heir of the god who seeks war.”
