Overwatch

Blizzard Built A ‘Strike Team’ To Put An End To Overwatch Jerks

These days, it’s hard to talk about Overwatch without mentioning its ongoing struggles with sexism, racism, griefing, match throwing, andworse. At BlizzCon, game director Jeff Kaplan told Kotaku that fighting toxicity is now more of a priority than ever, to the point that Blizzard has formed a “strike team” to do so. In recent months,…

Overwatch ‘Shipping Immortalised With Cosplay

Any Overwatch players who are fans of a Mercy x Genji romance, here’s some BlizzCon cosplay to warm the heart. Genji is Danquish, while Mercy is @Skippie22. Photos by DTJAAAM

Overwatch World Cup Comes Down To A Fight Over Meters

The 2017 Overwatch World Cup finals saw reigning champions South Korea take on Canada, the mighty titan versus the underdog. There were cheers, excitement, and one very polite signholder in the crowd. South Korea’s upcoming Overwatch League team is called the Seoul Dynasty for a reason: the region’s dominance in many esports also extends to…

Meet BlizzCon’s Dancing Reaper

When I arrived at BlizzCon today, I saw a Reaper dancing all by himself. I walked up and asked him why he was dancing. He paused for a moment, shrugged, and then resumed dancing. Here’s a video of him dancing:

A Closer Look At Scrapped Overwatch Hero Jetpack Cat

Here is concept art of legendary scrapped Overwatch hero, Jetpack Cat. During a BlizzCon panel about Overwatch’s formative days, game director Jeff Kaplan and art director Arnold Tsang talked more about his origins, saying that they were trying to figure out how far was too far with regards to character designs. “We tried a robot…

Overwatch‘s New Hero Moira Is A Blast To Play, But Comes With A Learning Curve

In some ways, Overwatch’s new hero, Moira, announced yesterday at BlizzCon, feels like a stronger take on the basic premise underlying sniper grandma Ana: she’s a healer for people who hate playing healers. I’ve gotten to play a few matches as Moira (first name: “Mines Of”) during BlizzCon, and I’ve been having a blast. Two…

Blizzard Adding More Special Skins To Regular Overwatch Loot Boxes

Today during the Overwatch “What’s Next” panel at BlizzCon, Blizzard announced that from now on, it’ll add more event-style skins to regular, non-event loot boxes. For the past year, the majority of new skins have only been available during timed events, after which they went back into a vault inside Jeff Kaplan’s terror palace. During…

Blizzard Unveiled Moira, Overwatch’s New Hero, With Cosplay

Like they did with Doomfist, Blizzard used the announcement of a new Overwatch hero today to indulge in a little company-sponsored cosplay. And like they did with Doomfist, they commissioned the excellent Henchmen Studios to do the building. Libby Ives is doing the actual cosplay, while Mineralbluwas there to take some shots (and video) for…

Overwatch’s D.Va gets her own set of gaming gear. Razer’s decked out its Abyssus Elite gaming mouse and Goliathus mouse mat in pink, blue and black, and created a new MEKA gaming headset to bring it all together. Themouse and pad are available now, with the headset coming later this year.

Overwatch Gets A New Hero: Moira, A Support Healer

Overwatch is getting a new hero and she looks rad as hell. Moira is a powerful support healer that mixes DPS and healing. A geneticist working for the nefarious organization Talon with additional ties to the Overwatch’s spec ops group Blackwatch, Moira (full name Moira O’Deorain) mixes high mobility with support skills. In a trailer shown…

Overwatch‘s Next Map Is Blizzard World, A Tribute To Blizzard Games

Overwatch’s newest upcoming map is a crazy theme park full of World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Starcraft and other Blizzard games’ lore. So Blizzard can advertise its other games to you while you’re playing Overwatch. Yay! Blizzard World will be part assault and part payload and released early next year. This is almost certainly the “Yo…

Bastion Cosplay Was A Halloween Treat 

Jiovanie Velazquez’s 10 year-old son wanted a Bastion costume for Halloween, and since you can’t exactly walk into a store and buy one, he decided to make one for him. The suit was made of EVA Foam, had LED lighting in the helmet and also voice-activated lighting in the chest. Velazquez even went to the…

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…