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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 -
CultureOverwatch Is Making Big Changes To Keep The Meta ‘Fluid’
By this point, I would imagine that Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan is sick of talking about the meta. It’s a perennial topic among vocal portions of the Overwatch community and a near-constant source of consternation. The meta over-prioritizes certain heroes, say some people. It changes too slowly, say others, asking for MOBA-style solutions like hero picks…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 30, 2020 -
Blizzard Cancels Overwatch League Matches Over Chinese Coronavirus Fears
Blizzard has tonight cancelled all Overwatch League matches scheduled to take place in China for the next two months due to the country’s Coronavirus crisis. The company issued a short statement which reads: We have decided to cancel our February and March matches in China in order to protect the health and safety of our…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 29, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League, Call Of Duty League, And Hearthstone Esports Will Air On YouTube, Not Twitch
With Overwatch League season three set to kick off in just over two weeks, it was becoming a little conspicuous that we still didn’t know where it was going to air. Now we do: With its two-year Twitch deal now expired, Overwatch League is moving to YouTube. It will be joined by Activision’s new Call…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 24, 2020 -
Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan Has Some Thoughts About Overwatch‘s Meta
Ah, the meta. Sometimes OK, sometimes terrible, always there, it’s rare that it’s not a hot topic of conversation among fans of Overwatch (or, well, any online game), and a boring one at that. But when a prominent developer weighs in on the subject, that’s a bit more interesting. Jumping into a thread on Blizzard’s…
By Luke Plunkett Published January 23, 2020 -
EsportsCheck Out The Overwatch League’s Fancy New Designer Uniforms
Who needs commentators when the players look so good? The Overwatch League has teamed with legendary streetwear designer Jeff Staple to create an “authentic player kit” for each of the league’s 20 teams. It’s so fancy. The new kits, designed to bring the esports experience more in line with the traditional sports experience, are more…
By Mike Fahey Published January 16, 2020 -
EsportsOverwatch League Commentators Are Jumping Ship [UPDATE]
Watching professional Overwatch matches can be chaotic. At times, team fights look less like coherent, role-driven skirmishes and more like cartoon characters punching and kicking inside screen-eclipsing dust clouds. Commentators play a crucial role, making sense of the madness to both esports fans and the uninitiated mainstream audience Blizzard hopes to attract. But with season…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 13, 2020 -
EsportsHouston Overwatch League Team Decides To Move After New Neighbors Complain
Season three of the Overwatch League kicks off next month, and that means teams are finally gearing up to live and operate out of their home cities. The Houston Outlaws, unfortunately, have not received the warmest of welcomes from their neighbors. Houston Outlaws general manager Matt “Flame” Rodriguez said yesterday on Twitter that his team…
By Nathan Grayson Published January 10, 2020
