Overwatch

Overwatch Players Resolve Overtime Match With Torbjorn Hammer Duel

A lot of people think winning an Overwatch match is about coordination, acumen and skill, when actually, with just a little imagination, it can be about two Torbjorns hammering each other to death. TheBeginS queued up for a normal Quick Play match the other day that, by the end, was neck-and-neck. Three minutes before the…

A Great Match From Korea’s First All-Women Overwatch Tournament

Over the weekend, a Korean company called Inven broadcast the finals of Korea’s first amateur all-women Overwatch tournament. It was a damn good match. The “All For Ladies” tournament actually took place earlier this month, but the finals weren’t broadcast until this weekend. Two teams, Pandora Ladies and 1st.Lady, went toe-to-toe in a best-of-five match,…

Man Says He Spent 100 Hours Making This D.Va Case Mod

First modder P_Goon designed the case and the stickers. And then he says he spent a very long time making the thing. As tipster Sang points out, the Seongnam, South Korea resident uploaded photos of the build to his Facebook. I think it turned out great. Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture,…

Overwatch Adding Features To Make Pro Matches More Watchable

“I tried watching a pro Overwatch tournament, but I couldn’t understand what was going on” is a refrain I’ve heard more times than I can count. I totally understand. Overwatch is a blur of lights, colors, and middle-aged men in cowboy costumes even in its chillest moments. Ahead of Overwatch League’s big kick-off, Blizzard’s finally…

Look At These Little Hanzo And Genji Action Figures

Now that Tracer, Mei andMercy have been transformed into adorable action figures by Good Smile Company, it’s the guys’ turn. Brothers-at-odds Hanzo and Genji Shimada join the big-headed battle next year. Look at Hanzo’s little beard! Seriously, the beard is the best. While the Hanzo Nendoroid figure’s expressions capture the seriousness of the former leader…

Spamming Overwatch Voice Lines Can Get You In Trouble

In Overwatch, each character has a series of prerecorded voice lines that players can deploy at will during matches. These include everything from greetings and taunts to McCree’s notoriously Kirk-Hamilton-irritating “I’m your Huckleberry.” It’s not hard to spam them. Just because you can, however, does not mean you should. In a recent Overwatch forum post,…

This Overwatch/Pokemon mash-up shouldn’t work, but it totally does. I’m not sure I’d want to play iDeViL360‘s Pokemon-style Overwatch game if it existed, but it’s a fertile, monster-ridden field for humor. Speaking of fields, of course patches of tall grass would be lousy with annoying level one Hanzos.

Seems Like Overwatch‘s Junkrat Gets Play Of The Game A Lot These Days 

It’s the end of a hard-fought Overwatch match, the brief moment before an algorithm tells the game’s 12 players who had the most badass play. I’m poised to receive my laurels after pulling off a triple-kill with Roadhog’s ultimate attack. I also won’t be upset if our Pharah gets Play of the Game with her…

Twitch Adds Loot Boxes With Temporary Emotes

Twitch has introduced loot crates for Halloween which offer temporary emotes. The crates offer random rewards, as well as a permanent reward for collecting the whole set. It’s weird. A Twitch blog post outlines a Halloween promotion in which players can spent “bits” to receive special loot crates. Bits are a digital currency bought with…

Mercy’s Redesign Shows The Tug Of War Between Casual And Competitive Overwatch

In the past month, the healer Mercy in Overwatch has experienced an unprecedented boom in popularity across all competitive levels, especially in the highest tiers. The big spike in Mercy usage coincides with a massive overhaul of her abilities, courtesy of a patch implemented on September 19. These huge changes have sparked debate in the…

What Destiny 2 and Overwatch Animations Tell Us About Their Characters

Even if we can’t see out character’s face and body, animation tells us a lot about characters in first person games. Heather takes a look in this critical video. Transcript: I was playing Destiny 2 and running public events for my weekly. After a while, I decided to punch every enemy I came across and…

Everyone Has A Crush On This Concept Art For Overwatch‘s Mercy

Overwatch fandom can’t stop talking about, and drawing, this radically different Mercy concept art. Over the weekend, at the Overwatch exhibit in Gallery Nucleus in Portland, Oregon, Blizzard had copies of their upcoming Overwatch artbook. An enterprising fan, twitter user Adulture, took a few pictures of the concept art for the game from the book.…

Puerto Rican Overwatch Player Isn’t Letting Hurricane Irma Derail His Career

It was the day after hurricane Irma had hit Puerto Rico, and Luis Galarza Figueroa was left without options. Walking outside of his family’s home in Barceloneta after the storm subsided, he could see trees and cables on the ground. The power, something Figueora needed for many things including his burgeoning competitive gaming career, was…

Loot Boxes Are Designed To Exploit Us

The influx of randomized loot boxes into games like Shadow of War and Star Wars Battlefront II has kicked off a discussion about their inclusion in games. Discussions of multiplayer imbalance and blocked off game content ignore an important truth: loot boxes are an ethical problem. They exist largely to exploit players and create addicts.…

In China, Blizzard Is Suing Over Alleged Overwatch Rip Off

If you think mobile game Heroes of Warfare looks like Overwatch, you’re not alone. So does Blizzard China and NetEase, Overwatch’s Chinese operator, which is why they’re taking it to court. If you’ve never seen Heroes of Warfare, check out these screens from Hachima and My Game News Flash: Here is gameplay: This seems to be…

Another Good Overwatch Figure!

The excellent Tracer Figma (some of the world’s finest action figures) is now being joined by a Genji. The figure includes his katana, wakizashi and shuriken, which like Tracer’s motion blur have fancy effects. It’ll be out in May 2018. If you would like to join me in asking that Mercy is next, please hold…

Almost Everyone Is Playing Overwatch With A Mercy On Their Team Now

Overwatch’s angelic healer Mercy got a massive makeover this month. The changes have turned her into the most popular hero across all levels of competitive play, according to data from hundreds of thousands of Overwatch player profiles collected by the fan-run site Omnic Meta. The stats show that Mercy currently gets selected almost 100% of…

Hanzo Cosplay Is Very Beautiful

Cherry blossoms fall / Look at his beautiful face / Do not main Hanzo. This is Stylouz Cosplay. Photos by FlaavTV. For more Overwatch haiku, please consult this collection

Overwatch Players Are Photobombing Halloween Mode Again

In Overwatch’s Halloween-themed “Junkenstein’s Revenge” mode, boss characters get stylish entrances that are one part Play Of The Game and one part Too Many Cooks. Naturally, players have found a way to screw with them. This post originally ran on October 14, 2016. It’s been updated with new photobombs from the 2017 version of Junkenstein’s…

Overwatch’s Most Popular Player Talks Overwatch League (And Bastion)

Brandon “Seagull” Larned has had quite a year, going from esports player to full-time streamer and back again, all while continuing to grow a fandom of millions who love him for his easygoing demeanor and gravity-defying Pharah and Genji plays. Over the weekend, his new team, EnvyUs, swept the finals of the $100,000 Overwatch Contenders…