by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

In an interview with Polygon, Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan talked somewhat more specifically about how the game rose from the ashes of the Titan project, but also how Blizzard’s current game offerings have had an impact on how it’s gone so far.

Something that surprised me coming out of this article is how hard Kaplan is working to drive home the point that Overwatch is not just a piece of the intended Titan experience spun out into its own game, but instead something built from scratch that only took some design lessons learned by the Titan dev team.

Another interesting note came from how the team is starting to consider the esports possibilities of the game. Kaplan tells a story about how the Overwatch QA team took funds intended for a party and instead threw an in-house tournament for the game. This was apparently a turning point in how Blizzard thought about the game, which then laid the groundwork for last month’s event where several pro-level Team Fortress 2 players were invited to test out the game at Blizzard HQ.

The shocker at the end? Kaplan says the current plan is that there’s unlikely to be an open beta for the game. There’s easily another 6-9 months during which that plan can change, but it stands to reason that the beta period for Overwatch might either take less time than Blizzard’s other beta efforts. Alternatively, it could end up being similar to the current Heroes of the Storm beta atmosphere, where beta keys are not hard to come by and a collegiate esports push means that you’ll get a ton of grassroots teams angling for a shot at glory and free education.

Read the full article over on Polygon, including some additional impressions about how McCree and Zarya played at PAX East.