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Esports
Overwatch Pros Sniped Off A Ledge After Ambush Goes Wrong
The Immortals Overwatch team has an impressive damage-dealing duo in GrimReality and Agilities, but every now and then, it’s nice to see a couple of greats get cut down. The internet enjoyed schadenfreude at Immortals’ expense during yesterday’s Overwatch “Monthly Melee” semi-finals, where our two anti-heroes got way too cocky about sneaking out onto a…
By Maddy Myers Published February 27, 2017 -
CultureCosplayShowcaseNSFW Overwatch Cosplay Was The Star Of The Show
Katsucon, the first big cosplay show of 2017, was held last week, and amongst all the other cool stuff on display was a collection of Overwatch cosplayers wearing, well, not very much at all. They were part of a group effort known as Underwatch, which was the brainchild of cosplay superstar Stella Chuu. Inspired by…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 26, 2017 -
Esports
Overwatch Pro Makes Exquisite Last-Second Recovery With Winston’s Jump Pack
South Korean Overwatch pro Miro is probably the best Winston player in the world. His deft tank work helped South Korea win the first Overwatch World Cup and he took home personal tournament MVP honors as well. If you want a highlight reel of his best moments, well here you go Miro’s Lunatic-Hai squad was…
By Patrick Redford Published February 24, 2017 -
Overwatch Wins Game Of The Year At The DICE Awards, Surprising No One
Overwatch took home peer-based voting panel DICE’s “Game of the Year” award in a move that was never going to go any other way. Also the Game Awards’ Game of the Year, Overwatch made a clean sweep of 2016 awards cycle. In DICE’s 20th year, only three games won multiple categories: Overwatch, Inside and Uncharted…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published February 24, 2017 -
We Debate What’s Best For Overwatch’s Bastion
This week on our semi-regular Overwatch show, Let’s Break It Down, Cecilia, Heather, and I discuss the upcoming Bastion changes, as well as custom games and, for some reason, ‘90s anime classic Neon Genesis Evangelion. I, personally, am not a huge fan of Bastion, but I will admit that the walking tuna tin piloted by…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 22, 2017 -
Overwatch Fans Believe The Next Hero Is A Robot Spider
Some Overwatch fans are pretty sure they’ve figured out what the next hero will be based on an short lore post that dropped yesterday, as well as some promotional images floating through the internet. Yesterday, Blizzard dropped a new bit of lore relating to a new character, Efi Oladele, an eleven year-old inventor from Numbani.…
By Gita Jackson Published February 22, 2017 -
EsportsOverwatch Hacker Impersonating Streamer Gets Matched Up Against Real Player, Rivalry Ensues
Kephrii is a competitive Overwatch player known for being one of the best Widowmakers in the world. Last weekend, he hopped into a match where he found another Widowmaker player also using the handle Kephrii—and that player happened to be a hacker. The fake Kephrii didn’t just have the gall to impersonate a top player…
By Patricia Hernandez Published February 22, 2017 -
Watch Blizzard Create An Overwatch Highlight Animation
Overwatch highlight intros are just one small part of a very big game, but that doesn’t mean they’re an afterthought. This one Mei animation, for instance, took four days to make. Highlight intros play, well, before highlights—for instance, when you’ve gotten Play Of The Game. Artist David Gibson, who we’ve featured before, recorded himself making…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 21, 2017 -
Esports
Pro Overwatch Player Wrecks Entire Team’s Defense With Sneaky Lucio Boop
In the $100k Tespa Collegiate Champion Finals, Overwatch player Funanah used Lucio’s “Boop” to steal an early lead in a match. It was a play so good that it seemed to demoralize his opponents into losing the whole thing. The Boop, as many of you already know, is Lucio’s Soundwave move—it can push people to…
By Maddy Myers Published February 21, 2017 -
Culture
My Favorite Images From Toy Fair 2017 Day Three
I’ve escaped from New York’s Javits Convention Center, but not before snapping some final shots of the wonders on display at the 2017 New York Toy Fair. Check out new stuff from Mass Effect Andromeda, Borderlands 2, Overwatch, Kingdom Hearts and whatever else caught my eye. Channeling Josephine Baker, DC Collectibles’ Vixen Bombshell statue is…
By Mike Fahey Published February 21, 2017 -
Esports
Overwatch Mom Is Really Stoked For Her Son’s Team
It’s not easy being a competitive gamer or a college student at an elite university, and especially not both. Fortunately, Overwatch player SlurpeeThief has the support of both his teammates and an extremely enthusiastic mom to pull from. At the Tespa Collegiate Series finals for Overwatch last night in California, Berkeley put the kibosh on…
By Ethan Gach Published February 20, 2017 -
Your Best Stories Of Getting Rescued In Video Games
In video games, we’re used to being heroes, saving hapless innocents from villains, monsters, and their own demons. Sometimes, though, we need a hero to save us. Here are stories of players coming to each other’s rescue, not because they had to, but because they could. Earlier this week, I asked readers to tell me…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 17, 2017 -
Blizzard Shuts Down Fanmade Overwatch Playboy Parody
Overwatch and porn (or, in this case, “artful eroticism”) have quite a history. Blizzard’s never seemed entirely comfortable with it, but the burgeoning Overwatch porn scene has raged on without its explicit approval. An Overwatch Playboy parody, however, apparently went too far. Playwatch Magazine began as nothing but a series of Playboy-style covers featuring Overwatch…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 17, 2017 -
Esports
Crafty Overwatch Players Are Staying Up Late To Get Better Ranks
Overwatch players in low-density regions are allegedly gaming the competitive matchmaking system for unreal rankings and win rates. On RedditandBattle.net forums, Brazilian Overwatch players in particular are concerned about a few Masters-ranked teams whose performance ratings are through the roof. Many are among the region’s top 500 players, lingering in the top 2% of kill/death…
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published February 17, 2017 -
Esports
Cheater Ends Up In Match With Pro Overwatch Players, Gets Wrecked
They say karma’s a bitch. I say it’s pretty friggin’ cool sometimes. During a recent stream, Overwatch pro Brandon “Seagull” Larned, who currently plays for NRG, assembled a truly fearsome six stack. His team was made up of Brady “Agilities” Girardi, who plays for Immortals, Christopher “GrimReality” Schaefer, who also plays for Immortals, CLG player…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 16, 2017 -
Overwatch’s third competitive season will end February 21st at 7PM EST.
By Cecilia D'Anastasio Published February 16, 2017 -
Despite Outcry, Blizzard Says Overwatch Loot Box Drop Rates Haven’t Changed
If you ask Overwatch players, the most recent seasonal event, Year of the Rooster, had some damn good skins and some damn heinous drop rates for those skins. Blizzard, however, insists that they haven’t touched those dials in months. I’ve seen a number of threads on the Overwatch forums about what appears to be a…
By Nathan Grayson Published February 14, 2017 -
Look At This Little Overwatch Action Figure
My chief complaint with Overwatch since the beta has been the lack of Overwatch action figures. And while Nendoroids aren’t quite what I had in mind, they are certainly better than nothing. Good Smile Company announced the deal today, and while they’ll be making a whole line of figures, the only one shown—and the first…
By Luke Plunkett Published February 14, 2017 -
Kotaku East
How Blizzard Is Combating Korea’s Overwatch Hacking Problem
As previously reported, cheating has been plaguing Overwatch’s South Korean servers. Today, Blizzard Korea announced a new policy designed to combat that. To recap: Because of the way the net cafe business works in South Korea, Overwatch players there could walk into any PC bang and create a free Battle.net account to play. It wasn’t…
By Brian Ashcraft Published February 14, 2017