Overwatch

Let’s Talk Overwatch! We’re back for another episode of our weekly chat series where we get together to talk about the ups and downs of the week in Overwatch. This week Cecilia, Nathan and I cover the new competitive season, how we feel about competitive play in general, and which character is going to be…

Look At The Size Of This Overwatch Cosplay

Egg Sisters have been absolutely dominating Dragon Con with this Reinhardt, which despite looking like an enormous statue is actually a cosplay outfit that can turn, wave its arms and even walk. To get an idea of the scale of the costume, look at this! Incredible. You can see more of Egg Sisters’ work at…

Your Shooter Deserves Better Enemies

So, you’re in charge of a brand new giant AAA video game, and the execs up top are expecting you to drop one of the most slammin’ game designs of 2018 on their desks. What do you do? I’ve played a lot of video games, and if there’s one thing I love, it’s a good…

A Discussion On Female Body Diversity In Games

Yesterday, critic Anita Sarkeesian published a video about female body diversity in games. “All the Slender Ladies” examines why games often showcase thin, young, humanoid women but rarely feature lady rock creatures or skeletal female priestesses. Male video game characters, she says, more often deviate from standards of male attractiveness, she explains. “It’s as if…

Overwatch‘s Mei Buff Is Useful, But Only If You’re Smart

Yesterday’s surprise Overwatch patch brought with it some balance changes—most importantly (to me), Mei’s buff, a thing of both immeasurable good and evil. Blizzard expanded Mei’s ultimate move, also called “Blizzard,” from 8 meters to 10 meters. Enemies within its circumference are quickly frozen, sitting ducks for a hero like Pharah to blast them with…

Overwatch‘s New Map And Second Season Are Now Live

The Overwatch update that was supposed to land next week just dropped. It’s a biggie. Competitive mode season two has now officially kicked off, and a new map, Eichenwalde, is officially in the game. Originally, Blizzard was planning to launch season two on September 6, but it’s here right now on PC and Xbox One,…

Blizzard, Why Didn’t You Make Roverwatch?

I mean, I like Overwatch. But this seems like an improvement. Because it’s the same game, just…with cute dogs. Actually, if we’re gonna do this, make it the same game, with everyone except Mercy and Soldier 76 as cute dogs. These are the work of former Naughty Dog artist Lily Nishita. I cannot stop laughing…

Who Even Watches Their Overwatch Kill-Cam?

We’re back with the second episode of our new weekly video series where —you guessed it!—we hang out and talk about Overwatch. Working title is “Let’s Talk Overwatch.” We’ll probably change that soon. This week I’m joined once more by Cecilia and Nathan to talk about failure, death, and all that fun stuff. Do any…

Game Combat Is Great When It Gives You Time To Rest

From Overwatch to Attack on Titan and more, I’ve been playing games with intense action. These games maintain my interest and keep the excitement coming by doing some smart things with their pace and design. We’ll break it down in this video. Transcript: More often than not, we think of games in active terms. Examining…

What if Overwatch’s Hanzo was a lady? Character artist J Hill took a crack at that idea, and wow yeah, I’m on board. I doubt Blizzard can make an official skin out of this due to hitbox/balance issues, but I can dream. You can see more images of lady Hanzo here

The latest update to Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher allows players to stream games like Overwatch, Hearthstone and World of Warcraft directly to Facebook

Please, Blizzard, please, give us this as an alternate option for Reaper’s ult in Overwatch. TwistedGrimTV reimagined the bane of your existence and mine with a bit less grimdark edge and a bit more fabulous flash. It really is raining men. Hallelujah.

Guy’s Mom Tries To Describe Overwatch Characters Without Knowing Overwatch

The “parents don’t know but they’ll talk about it anyway” gag is not a new one, but it remains a sweet one when the parents do a good job (and aren’t treated like idiots by exploitative kids). Like Karhall’s mom here, who was asked to talk about Overwatch characters without knowing who the hell they…

You will be shocked to hear this, but many of us on staff here at Kotaku play Overwatch It’s actually pretty unusual for so many of us to be playing the same game, so we thought we’d make some weekly videos where we casually chat about what’s new with the game. This week Cecilia, Nathan…

The Guy With The Lowest Possible Rank In Overwatch

It’s possible to hit rank zero in Overwatch’s competitive mode. Dale “Bacontotem” Brown knows. He’s done it. There’s a caveat, though: it takes a hell of a lot of work. Overwatch’s first competitive season’s skill rating system graded people on wins/losses and their personal performance. Each player received a number somewhere between 1 and 100.…

Roadhog Vs. Roadhog Is The Most Savage Overwatch Match-Up

Who’s the ultimate Roadhog? Whose death hook is quicker to clamp, a surer vice of animal ferocity? In a tug-of-war of barbed hooks and scrap metal dominance, I’ve decided that it’s me, and not that other Roadhog on the enemy team. It is definitely not that Roadhog. I am in fact emoting on his discarded…

Another DDoS Attack Takes Out Blizzard’s Servers [UPDATE]

Update—10:40 a.m.: With grace, felicity and no pity for this post’s short-lived relevance, Blizzard resolved their server issues ten minutes post-publication. Read below for background on today’s now-fixed DDoS attack against Battle.net. A DDoS attack this morning crippled Blizzard’s Battle.net servers, according to Blizzard’s official Twitter account. Overwatch, Hearthstone, World of Warcraft and other Blizzard…

What video game castle level in the year 2016 would be complete without a Dark Souls reference? Overwatch’s new Eichenwalde map contains a pretty obvious homage. Good thing Blizzard just put sitting emotes in the game, too. Here’s the full thing, clearly an overt reference to Dark Souls’ checkpoints, courtesy of alcatrazcgp: If you want…

Overwatch’s New Map Is Easy To Defend, Hard To Attack

Overwatch’s new map, Eichenwalde, is now live on the game’s public test server. It’s set in a village next to a big ol’ German castle. The map, however, is smaller than it looks. I’ve played a handful of matches on Eichenwalde now, and I’ve found it to be a briskly paced payload map that favors…

Overwatch’s First Big Tournament Gives Out $100,000 In Prize Money

Overwatch’s first major international tournament was held over the weekend in Cologne, Germany. Hosted at Gamescom, Europe’s largest games trade show, the ESL Overwatch Atlanta Showdown saw competition from eight pro teams. With a prize pool of $100,000 in the balance, professional players busted out their best Tracers and most bad ass Genjis and fought…