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CultureOverwatch Player Uses New Feature To Fuse Entire Team Into A Single, Hulking Monstrosity
Overwatch is, at its core, a game about teamwork. Individual heroes do their own things—Reinhardt shields, Mercy heals, and Genji dies—but they’re ultimately contributing to a greater whole. One player, Andy Bohan, has gone and made that idea all too literal. I’m talking “end of Akira” literal. As part of the Overwatch public test server’s…
By Nathan Grayson Published May 22, 2020 -
CultureKotaku Game DiaryI Refuse To Regret Spending $450 On A Bright Pink Gamer Chair
Gamer chairs have always struck me as an incredibly funny concept. In 2006, a desperate luxury car seat company called DXRacer decided to roll the dice on pivoting to video games, laying down the racing car-esque blueprint for gamer chairs as we know them. So now professional players and streamers achieve maximum performance in disembodied…
By Nathan Grayson Published May 20, 2020 -
ReviewsToysTiny Anime Reinhardt Is The Overwatch Toy I’ve Been Waiting For
Since the folks at Japanese toymaker Good Smile Company started making big-headed anime figures of Overwatch characters, I’ve been patiently waiting for my spirit hero to make his small but impactful appearance. And here he is, a giant among Nendoroids, Reinhardt. I love him. Available now for preorder from the Blizzard Gear Store, Reinhardt is…
By Mike Fahey Published May 20, 2020 -
EsportsSomeone At American Dad Is A Big Fan Of The Overwatch League
In the grand tradition of primetime animated shows mining contemporary pop culture for content, American Dad’s most recent episode featured esports as its topic of the day. In a clip shared by TBS, the show’s main character is tasked with assassinating a North Korean general while he attends an Overwatch League match in Hong Kong.…
By Ash Parrish Published May 19, 2020 -
EsportsTop Overwatch Team Loses Entire Player Roster Amidst Allegations Of Mismanagement [UPDATE]
Between covid-19 and countless other difficulties, Overwatch League’s make-or-break third season has gone as far off the rails as anyone could have imagined. Now, after losing a star player to Valorant last week, the league has lost one of its top teams. At least, temporarily. Today, the Vancouver Titans, last year’s second-place team behind championship…
By Nathan Grayson Published May 6, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch MVP’s Mid-Season Departure For Valorant Doesn’t Bode Well For Blizzard
Jay “Sinatraa” Won isn’t just any Overwatch League player. After a stellar 2019 in which his team, the San Francisco Shock, took home championship gold, he was declared the league’s MVP. This means that the game’s developers at Blizzard will release an in-game skin to commemorate his exploits. Yesterday, during the middle of season three,…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 29, 2020 -
CultureYou Can Finally Apologize For Being Trash In Overwatch
Who doesn’t love voice lines in Overwatch? They let you say hello. They can help your teammates stay abreast of your ultimate percentage. If you play DPS, you can use them to spam messages about how you need healing until everybody else’s ears seal closed like ancient pharaoh tombs. But soon, Blizzard is going to…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 23, 2020 -
Overwatch’s newest hero, Echo, is bringing her brand of glowy blue justice to the live game on April 14 She’s been on the PC public test server since shortly after her announcement a few weeks ago. Her ult lets her transform into another hero of her choosing, so things are about to get wacky.
By Nathan Grayson Published April 9, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Players Fined $1,000 Each For Typing ‘Sex,’ ‘Big Dick’ Into Chat
Friendly fifth-grade-level banter between foes is all well and good, but there’s a time and place for it. When you’re a professional Overwatch League player, the big stage—even during a quarantine—is not it. While Overwatch League initially reacted to covid-19 by postponing all March and April matches, it’s now making up for lost time with…
By Nathan Grayson Published April 6, 2020 -
CultureOverwatch‘s Newest Hero Is Echo, A Long-Awaited AI Robot
Seven months after the release of its last new hero, Overwatch is finally getting a new one. Echo, who players of the popular team shooter have been salivating over ever since she made her cinematic debut in the 2018 trailer that introduced Ashe, will be playable “soon.” Today, Blizzard posted a trailer officially introducing Echo.…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 18, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsOverwatch‘s New Skins Are So Good They’ve Made Me Care About Skins
I need you to do something for me right now. I need you to look up. See that image? That’s Pharah, from Overwatch. She’s wearing aviators and a leather jacket. She looks like Stephanie Beatriz’s character from Brooklyn 99. And she is gonna fuck you up That’s just one of eight new skins added to…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 13, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Cancels All March And April Events Due To Coronavirus
Overwatch League’s planned migration of teams to their respective cities for a full season of home and away games has hit yet another big obstacle. After isolated cancellations of events in China and South Korea, the league has now pulled the plug on all live events around the world in March and April. As with…
By Nathan Grayson Published March 11, 2020 -
Riot’s Next Game Is Valorant, A First-Person Shooter
Previously known solely as the League of Legends studio, Riot showed us last year that they’re now working on all kinds of new stuff. The first of which is Valorant, a team-based shooter. We got a brief look at it in 2019, but here’s a full round of the game in action, captured with Riot…
By Luke Plunkett Published March 2, 2020 -
CultureOverwatch Change That Nerfs Teabagging Is A Bug, Blizzard Says
Earlier this week, a small but vocal group of what can only be described as “teabagging enthusiasts” made a discovery straight out of their darkest, knee joint-less nightmares: Overwatch’s Ana, a champion teabagger despite her advanced age, could no longer crouch over unconscious enemies. Among other skills, Ana has a sleep dart ability that temporarily…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 28, 2020 -
OpinionImpressionsOverwatch‘s New Experimental Card Turns Tanks Into Powerhouses
It’s a longtime dream of mine to be extremely large and basically unkillable. I’ve yet to accomplish my goal in real life, but I will—mark my words. Until then, I’ve at least got Overwatch’s new experimental card, which turns tanks into nigh-unstoppable meat walls, to help me imagine a better world. The experimental card, which…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 28, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Cancels South Korea Matches Over Coronavirus Concerns
Late last month, Blizzard’s Overwatch League cancelled all matches scheduled to take place in China in February and March due to coronavirus fears. Now it’s cancelled matches for South Korea as well, just days before games were set to begin. The league made fans aware of the cancellations viaTwitter, writing, “In order to protect the…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 24, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch‘s YouTube Deal Makes A New Brigitte Skin Costly For Most Players
Until February 19, Blizzard is offering Overwatch players a skin nobody asked for, but that is, admittedly, pretty funny: “Goat Brigitte,” a horned, blue-and-purple number meant to commemorate the notoriously unpopular “GOATS” meta that dominated OWL season two last year. There’s just one problem: It’s currently impossible to earn the in-game currency players need to…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 13, 2020 -
EsportsWhy The Paris Overwatch League Team Is Based Out Of New Jersey This Season
After two seasons in Burbank, California, the Overwatch League has finally achieved its goal of scattering teams across the globe to their various home cities. Well, mostly. Paris Eternal, somewhat conspicuously, is operating out of New Jersey. New Jersey, in case you’re from a non-Earth planet, is not in France. A couple weeks before the…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 10, 2020 -
CultureCosplayShowcaseBlacksmith Creates Real, Flaming Overwatch Hammer
There are a lot of smaller, easier props you could make if you wanted to recreate a weapon from Overwatch, but nope, H-arthas skipped past all of those and forged himself an enormous replica of Reinhardt’s hammer. Unlike most replicas you’ll see, which will have been made with foam and/or wood, H-art torched, welded and…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 30, 2020