How Blizzard made you fall in love with its characters before releasing Overwatch

Blizzard worked hard to make you fall in love with Tracer, Zarya, and the rest of the Overwatch roster even before releasing the game, and that was part of the publisher’s plan.

Overwatch is an online shooter with very little overt narrative or plot that players engage with during gameplay, but its cast of characters have already inspired fandom and communities. Blizzard, which is best known for the massively multiplayer online role-playing adventure World of Warcraft, specifically wanted to draw people into its newest world. But, as Blizzard operations executive vice president Gio Hunt explained in a chat on stage at GamesBeat 2016 in Rancho Palos Verdes earlier this week, the company hasn’t made something like Overwatch before. That led to the team responsible for making and marketing the team-based action game to take a different approach than with some other Blizzard launches.