Soo are the animated shorts gone? I just watched the new freja hero trailer and honestly looks like theyve move on from the high budget animations to this newer lower quality style of animation, which made me question if this is what we will be getting from now on for short animations. I get that the original cinematics were prob expensive to make but the cinematics were such a big part in overwatch 1, prob one of the best animated short series out there, thats what made me want to play the game in the first place but now after the Juno short and the freja one im thinking we wont be seeing those cinematics again
1 Like
Yep, probably. It’s cheaper and easier to produce low quality animations.
Long-term profit? What’s that?
4 Likes
I think that’s what they’re planning on doing. The devs touched a bit on it during the spotlight. From what I remember it’s basically another department that handles that and they’re not going to focus too heavily on it unless they come up with something worth doing in the previous formats
I really miss the nicer 3D animated shorts.
5 Likes
Their team isn’t what it used to be, nor is their budget.
They gotta do what they can with what they got.
We didn’t get cinematic shorts for every hero release in OW1 so I don’t get this. We always got stylized short stories which have varied in their artistic style.
OW2 heroes with a cinematic have been Queen, Kiriko, and Sojourn, so that’s not 0. In fact, two of these cinematic films, Kiri/Queen, were to hype up the release of these heroes. From my memory we have only seen this being done 2 other times for new heroes in OW1 for Sombra and Ashe.
Heroes that have non-cinematic level origin/short stories who still have an animated short include Freya, Mauga, Weaver, Juno, Illari, Ramattra, Venture, and Hazard. (Literally all the OW2 heroes have gotten one).
So I don’t get this thought of OW2 hero trailers needing to be cinematic level quality since we didn’t get these things frequently for OW1 hero releases to begin with. Sig had an animated short (which was very well received), Wrecking ball had an animated short, Echo had an animated short…this isn’t strictly an OW2 thing. They’ve always been like this.
I agree that the cinematic level shorts should come back but putting cinematic against hero trailers/intros feels incomparable. Cinematic are expensive and take a lot of time, so literally who knows if one is in the works. It would be nice if there were some transparency from the team on this subject.
1 Like
$$$$
1 Like
It’s expensive and not worth the investment. Sadly it’s how it’s is. Which is depressing.
2 Likes
Im not saying for every hero, but this seems to be what therye going for, the hero origin stories were always 2d and like 2min long, but the cinematics were always longer and this seems to be more than just a hero origin story it was a full cinematic but lower budget
Same. The quality was so top notch. The recent “comic book style” animations are OK but the full-HD CG looks way better.
1 Like
It’s like when you were a kid and you were perfectly happy with American Cheese on your sandwich. It was fine. You liked it. But then you tasted Cheddar, Swiss, Provalone, Havarti, Gouda. And you developed a taste for the good stuff. Now when you go back to American Cheese, it’s OK but you kinda wish it was something a bit more.
That’s how I feel about this. If we had never tasted the good stuff, we wouldn’t miss it. But because we know how much better it can be, I’m personally just not satisfied with the current shorts.
3 Likes
Perfect analogy. 
I remember as a kid thinking MccyD burgers were the best. Nowadays? Lowest tier possible. Are the cinematics of today MccyD quality? 
1 Like
when coming wokenture , all cinematics ,shorts are downgrade
1 Like