I’m not sure if you’ve guys have heard, but StarCraft is getting a series at Dark Horse Comics. StarCraft: Soldiers is a 4-issue miniseries, and it’s the second after StarCraft: Scavengers, another miniseries from last year.
As someone who loves the lore, and got into Overwatch because of the world itself, I really hate the fact that this series has so much potential and yet it’s being wasted. I try to convince myself that Blizzard is planning for something big, but it’s hard when you feel like you’re just withering slowly with disappointment since 2016.
So basically, if StarCraft can get professionally-made comics with more substance, I feel like Overwatch should be the same. It still baffles me that it’s this slow. I could understand if it was from some indie company that’s holding itself together, but Blizzard? One of the biggest companies in the world, and from a billion-dollar IP? There should be more.
And I think it’s becoming a detriment. Less people are talking about the game, and more people are talking about Blizzard’s controversies and decline, and I think the fact that they haven’t used Overwatch to its fullest potential is partly responsible.
What I really want to see, in addition to comics, is a Netflix animated series. Animation would fit the series like a glove, and they’ve stated on multiple occasions that they are “very, very” interested in that idea. I mean, I hope we get that someday, especially since Diablo is almost-confirmed to be getting one (should’ve announced this instead of Immortal…), but for now, I’ll just take something more than scraps.
There’s no doubt that they could have a pro comic series made. Why are they holding back? I don’t know.
I do know that last fall around the time of Blizzcon, there was a now-deleted tweet from the director of a Diablo Netflix series about such a thing getting green-lit. (I might be somewhat mistaken on the details, but it was about a Diablo Netflix series coming in the future).
Overwatch is still “new” compared to Starcraft and Diablo so I wouldn’t throw away the idea that they’ll expand Overwatch storyline into other media such as comics, film, or series, etc., in the future, BUT I do think that their window of popularity is quickly coming to a close.
Jeff did say comics were in production, when is a different story as I don’t think he gave a date.
If I had to say, I rather have all forms of media for OW be handled like how Bastet was. Comics I feel, may delay production and slow it down due to finding artists that have a deadline needing to draw a whole 12-13 page comic and then needing to color it as well as then needing to have someone fill in the words for speaking so Chu would need to look over it costing more time.
Having just written dialogue where the writers are in full control and have very few pictures would be much easier production wise I feel, but Jeff did say comics were in production this year so yeah c:
Did he though? I thought he said “there’s a good reason why there were no comics so far” and “we have great ideas about comics in future”. I’m not sure if he ever said they were officially in production. I would like a source.
It was said during Fran’s stream at the start of the Bastet challenge.
Fran: Speaking of comics, are you guys gonna- Jeff: We are working on more comics, yes. I can say that difinitively. I’m super excited about the next run, what the next run of comics is gonna be. I can’t really talk a lot about it, and I don’t know timing yet. There’s dates that we were given that are sooner than later, but none of us beleive the soon dates. We hear the date and we’re like [makes face] I don’t think it’s going to be ready yet, but - yeah, we want to make more comics.
That would be all well and good but from what I gather getting them into the studio is difficult due to
Timing
Money
Someone theorized this is why a lot of legendary skins only get special voicelines (…provided there was none too begin with like the last two events) after they’ve been released for some time
I feel like itd be even harder to maintain a series based around the OG cast in this instance
my doubt is that he was referring above all to the comic that comes out for Archives event, no specific if there will be more than that … which is basically the only guarantee that we have in OW at present as lore.
Probably should be. I want animations, lore, comics – I want to learn about the world.
I don’t know StarCraft’s story but the way I see it, it has been around for a long time which means it is probably easier for Blizz to get a story written up for it than Overwatch, right now.
A lot of the lore is still trapped under the time-gated thumbs of this game. They probably (don’t know who calls the shots on this stuff) don’t want to start writing out a story knowing that all of these big breakthroughs could be used and shared in future game updates. Or worse, knowing that they could be changed by future decisions… (I believe the devs did state that their recently cancelled comic was canned because it restricted their vision of the story). Final possibility is that Overwatch is the devs baby and they want to release the story themselves in their medium.
Personally, I would rather hear about the story sooner than later. Parts of it could be left ambiguous for game updates but the brunt of the story would ideally be delivered through another channel.
Kind of like the band Coheed and Cambria. They are a band that made “Concept driven” music, especially their first several albums. Their songs were about crazy sci fi heroes and wars and they also made a comic book expanding the story their songs hinted at. If you really wanted to know the story, you could read the comic book but if not, you could still just go and enjoy the music.
I think Overwatch needs to establish that type of separation. Get a small team that can build up the story. Let them really think it out and publish a regular series of comics. Then, the dev team can create content based off of it - maybe skins from certain arcs/etc. Maybe do archive events of stuff mentioned but not shown in the books so that each medium can tell their share of the story.
This is partly why I want Overwatch to expand its franchise. Become like Pokemon - get some side games, mobile games, comic books, shows – Blizz isn’t an indie company jokes aside, the dev team can’t juggle them all. Gamefreak is the only company I can think of with that type of power (and I think that is because their brand is the combination of three separate companies/industries) but I do hope Blizz gets there one day.