But fans weren’t the only ones who saw the movie potential for these shorts. Not only did the animations catch the attention of fans, but they worked to draw in players that might not otherwise be interested in learning about a competitive first-person shooter. A month later, it was followed with another short called Alive.
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The full scope wasn’t revealed until March when the animated short Recall was released with the scripted quality and action one might expect from a Pixar movie. Little did audiences realize that the trailer really was the prelude to a cinematic experience.
Longtime Blizzard fans have long known that the company excels at creating cinematic trailers, as which was further evidenced by the Overwatch “theatrical trailer” that released in December. Although additional gameplay trailers and a closed beta were hosted in the following month, Overwatch promotion didn’t hit overdrive until around the start of spring this year. Then the company mostly went silent about the game until about a year later at BlizzCon 2015, when pricing for the standard “Origins” and limited editions were revealed, along with gameplay for newly revealed characters, and how that game would release either “on or before” June 21. Its cartoon-like graphics (similar to that of Team Fortress 2) and sci-fi superhero setting got people talking, and Blizzard initially described Overwatch as a “pick-up-and-play first-person shooter.” Clearly, the developer was looking to repeat the same success it had with previous games by taking a genre and making it accessible to a wide audience of players, all while maintaining enough challenge for the game to potentially become an eSport. Fans were eager to see how Blizzard would take on the hugely popular competitive shooter genre. However, this wasn’t the first time Blizzard has broken through into an established field to reinvent it, since it had already done it with the hit MMO World of Warcraft, the collectible card game Hearthstone, and (most recently) the action MOBA Heroes of the Storm. Overwatch was announced at BlizzCon 2014, and not only did it immediately gain attention as Blizzard’s first new franchise in 17 years, but it was also its first entry into the first-person shooter genre.