by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

The “Overwatch Origins” panel allowed the new franchise’s team to explain what it was like developing an entirely new universe, something that even newer games like Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm haven’t done entirely. Lead Game Designer Jeffrey Kaplan, Creative Director Chris Metzen, VFX Supervisor Jeff Chamberlain, Art Director Bill Petras, and Lead Character Concept Artist Arnold “Arn” Sang took the stage.

We’ve summarized the panel below and taken screenshots of many of the slides in the pictures section. For the question and answer session that followed, see the BlizzCon Overwatch Q&A Session article.

1. Building a New Universe
2. Narrowing the Gap Between Cinematics and Gameplay
3. Hero Design
4. Pictures

Building a New Universe

• Overwatch allowed the team to develop a “fresh, new art style”
  • Stylistically, it looks radically different from Blizzard’s other franchises–the world is “bright, heroic, not cynical, and brings out your inner 6-year-old”
  • Artists and designers stayed true to common themes in Blizzard art, including:
    • Exaggerated proportions and silhouettes
    • Epic heroes
    • Readability–designing elements that are immediately understandable and recognizable
    • Handcraftedness–not going for realism, but something both more simple and yet emotionally engaging
  • New game engine would have allowed them to design a realistic style, but they wanted something closer to Blizzard’s traditional style
• Art really started to come together with their first hero, Torbjörn
  • They began to figure out how to get the “handcrafted” feel while taking advantage of the new game engine and technology
• Metzen likens building the universe of Overwatch to building the universe of the Warcraft franchise
  • “Sometimes good ideas start simple”
  • Warcraft started with only the “Orcs versus Humans” theme, but over 20 years, several RTSs, one MMORPG, and many expansions, it has added new mythology, art, and culture to the game (like Draenei, for instance)
  • With Overwatch, the team is “finding their base,” from which they’ll determine how far they can push the fantasy of the franchise
• Since Overwatch is starting from scratch, Metzen feels that the experience is “very liberating” creatively

Narrowing the Gap Between Cinematics and Gameplay

• There was a lot of back-and-forth interaction between the cinematic team and the other design teams
• They started working on the cinematic and intro stuff a lot earlier than is normal in Blizzard products
• Historically, game and cinematic models are much more different than Overwatch‘s
  • The new game engine and technology has allowed them to strive for more high-quality in-game graphics
• Usually, the cinematic team stayed closer to concept art for heroes than the gameplay teams did
  • Sometimes, this led to accountability feedback so that one or the other reined in their design to look more similar
  • Sometimes, this led to both parties elaborating on the initial design of the hero
  • Sometimes, this was necessary due to the dictates of the medium
    • Example: Winston’s armor would never work in real life, so the cinematic team had to continually warp the armor or model to make it look like it would work on him and maintain the watcher’s belief

Hero Design

• Hero design came from many different areas (concept art, visual hooks, and other places)
• Pharah started off as only a “rocket launcher and jet pack” character–later iterations had her transition through high stylization, different genders, and other design aspects
  • Pharah was originally called “Rocket Dude”
• Reaper and Winston both came straight from the artwork the the team felt they really needed the two in the game
• Winston was cited as a good example of the team seeing how far they could push the fantasy of the game while remaining relatable to players and staying within the reality of Earth
  • Winston is a giant ape from the moon with an aptitude for creativity and science, but he still “seems to fit”
  • To Sang, he is a good example of the “imagination of the game”

(Source: BlizzPro, “Overwatch Origins” panel, BlizzCon 2014)

Pictures