Overwatch

Former Overwatch League MVP Jay ‘Sinatraa’ Won Suspended Over Sexual Assault Allegations

Former Overwatch League MVP and current Valorant pro Jay “Sinatraa” Won was suspended from his team Sentinels today after being accused of sexual assault by a former girlfriend. In a Google Doc posted late last night to Twitter, Cleo Hernandez detailed emotional and sexual abuse allegations, including instances of coerced sex. In a nine page…

Overwatch Casually Rolls Out Xbox Series X/S Enhancements

Yesterday’s Overwatch update was all about the PachiMarchi Challenge and that hideous and/or awesome new Roadhog skin, but next-gen Xbox owners got a little something extra with the update: new graphics options for Series X/S consoles, from 4K60 to blazing-fast 120Hz. We were so busy worrying about how our Roadhogs looked we never stopped to…

Fans Can’t Decide Whether New Overwatch Skin Is Cute Or Horrifying

Today, Overwatch announced the PachiMarchi Challenge, the newest event celebrating the game’s weird half-onion, half-octopus mascot Pachimari. Starting today, players who win games in Quick Play, Arcade, or Competitive mode can win Pachimari-themed cosmetics, including a Pachimari Roadhog skin that is, depending on your inclination, either very cute or extremely unsettling. Watching the trailer feels…

After Almost Three Years Away, Returning To Overwatch Feels Amazing

I have a confession to make: Despite being Kotaku’s number one Overwatch fan, I haven’t played it myself in two years. But buffeted by my optimism for Overwatch 2 and being unable to get my Overwatch fix because Overwatch League won’t be back for another month, I decided to play again, hoping to recapture what…

The Overwatch 2 Panel Was Cool But Please, Give Us The Damn Sojourn Reveal

Judging from its complete absence from BlizzConline’s opening keynote, you’d never guess Overwatch 2 was part of the Blizzard family of games, much less in the works. Thankfully, watching the “Behind the Scenes of Overwatch 2” panel put to rest any fears that the game might’ve been forgotten. Led by lead designer Jeff Kaplan, the…

It Would’ve Been OK To Skip This One, Blizzard

Tonight’s keynote for BlizzConline, Blizzard’s virtual showcase, was a tepid hour of previously leaked reveals for World of Warcraft and Diablo, some Hearthstone news, a passing mention of Diablo Immortal, and no Overwatch 2. As we’re fond of saying these days, it could have been an email. To be clear: I get it. 2020 was an…

The Blizzconline 2021 Schedule Is Available And God, I’m Going To Miss The Overwatch World Cup

Blizzconline 2021, Blizzard Entertainment’s digital answer to their yearly in-person Blizzcon event, posted its schedule today. In addition to offering updates on the development progress for Diablo IV and Overwatch 2, Blizzconline also boasts a number of community events. Viewers can choose from Hearthstone streamer matches, arts and crafts tutorials, and an Overwatch League exhibition…

Bloomberg Report Details Major Dysfunction At Amazon Game Studios

You may know it as the Everything Store. But there’s one chunk of “everything” Amazon has failed to crack: video games. A new report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier and Priya Anand sheds light on why Amazon Game Studios, backed by one of the planet’s biggest companies, can’t seem to make a successful video game. The…

Bleeding Edge Ceases Updates After 10 Months, Ninja Theory Focusing On Other Projects

Ninja Theory announced today that it will no longer be updating Bleeding Edge with new content, though the game will remain playable on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Bleeding Edge, an online 4v4 action game, was released on March 24 of last year. Now, less than a year later, the game will stop…

The San Francisco Shock beat out the Shanghai Dragons, the Philadelphia Fusion, and the Seoul Dynasty to become 2020’s Overwatch League grand champions. This win is the second championship for the Shock and marks the first time an Overwatch League team has won back-to-back titles.

Overwatch will be free to play for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers October 13-20. This trial features everything the game has to offer, including the plethora of heroes and maps that have been released since launch.

Overwatch Team with 4-17 Record Could Somehow Win the League Playoffs

Over the weekend, the Washington Justice became the embodiment of Overwatch League playoff chaos. They are other teams’ spoilers and the playoff Cinderellas. They’ve gone from one of the worst regular season performances to knocking out one tournament champ and almost knocking out another. And although their chances of ultimate triumph are still mathematically slim,…

Playoff Season Is The Best Time To Get Into Overwatch League

You do not need to have watched a single match of the 2020 Overwatch League season to follow the playoffs. Playoffs are the playoffs, you already know the stakes, no background information required. The playoffs themselves will provide their own self-contained narrative that newcomers can understand and invest in. The 2020 Overwatch League playoffs began…

Players Are Making Amazing Things In Overwatch‘s Workshop Mode

Overwatch turned four this past June, and despite attempts to keep the game fresh with new events, skins, and game modes, there’s only so many times one can tell a teammate to get on the damn payload. But one way players are keeping the game fresh and exciting is through experimenting in Overwatch’s Workshop, a…

Please Keep Making Silly Soccer Games

Alpaca Ball: Allstars is an upcoming soccer game from Austrian developer Salt Castle Studio. It features alpaca using their long necks as clubs to score goals. I will buy it when it launches on October 15. I hope developers never stop making games that are just “soccer but silly.” While this is a relatively recent…

A Racist Overwatch Team Got Banned, But I Still Feel Like Shit

Despite having not played in a while, I love Overwatch. I love its bright and vibrant characters from every part of the world (with one glaring omission). I love its message of hope for better, and how we all have the capacity to affect positive change. As the heroine Tracer says, “the world could always…

Ringer Alert: Overwatch League Free Agents Can Now Compete In Playoffs

Now that the pandemic’s torpedoed all of Blizzard’s plans for the Overwatch League 2020 season, the League’s head office is making significant changes to its roster construction rules ahead of the 2020 Playoff season. “The League Office has established the following guidelines in place for roster construction, which includes significant changes to contract lengths and…

Even Lapsed Overwatch Players Love Pharah’s New Lifeguard Skin

It’s summer. Per tradition, this means that the Overwatch team must give somebody abs, or face dire consequences. So Pharah is a lifeguard now. Cue the entire internet dramatically leaping into the ocean and pretending to drown in hopes that somebody—nobody specific, of course—might come save them. It would be an understatement to say that…

Overwatch Cosplay Lights Up The Darkness

Cosplayer Zibartas—who we’ve seen here before with some top-tier Overwatch work—has truly outdone himself here, building a complete set of Mercy’s wings made out of steel and aluminium, that move and really light up. Here’s the finished product: God damn If you’d like to see how something like this was put together, Zibartas has made…

Fastest-Ever Overwatch League Match Is 19 Minutes and 23 Seconds of Misery

The fastest match in Overwatch League history took place over the weekend, with last year’s champions, the San Francisco Shock, beating the brakes off the Vancouver Titans in a blisteringly fast match that ran just 19 minutes and 23 seconds. The extremely brief match surpassed a record set just the week before when the Los…