Blizzard decided to promote Overwatch through each character’s personal story.

Blizzard has long been successfully creating game franchises - from Diablo to Warcraft, and the new game Overwatch can be an excellent example of how the company is trying to use a new approach to promoting the project in modern conditions. If earlier Blizzard had always begun to develop the universe after the launch of a successful project, but in the case of Overwatch, the company is going to fill the game world with details before launching - this promotion model can pay off over time by attracting a potentially larger audience of users.

“Instead of starting from 1000 feet, we are going to gradually build a base and only then move upwards,” said the senior vice-president of the franchise development company and part-time creative director of the Blizzard game Chris Metzen.

At the heart of Overwatch is more than 21 heroes, on which the gameplay is built. It is the personalities of each of the characters that should determine the future success of the Overwatch franchise.
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“We wanted to make a franchise connected with the near future and recognizable places, and not about the distant future on the outskirts of another galaxy.

Overwatch is not just a shooter - this is the first game from the new universe, which will become the main flagship of the franchise. Of course, I hope that we can achieve these goals.

Take Warcraft - this is a whole world in which 12 games. This is not only World of Warcraft, this is not RTS, this is not MMOPRG. Soon the movie will be released in this universe - this is how Blizzard approaches the idea of ​​developing its franchises, ”Chris Metzen shared with journalists from The Verge.

The main message in the new concept of promotion Overwatch in comparison with other projects of Blizzard is the attention to the history of specific characters, and not the whole look, as is the case with the zerg and the protoss in StarCraft. Such a personal presentation of the history of the project b of each character can provide a deep connection with the audience.



Adding such elements helps to achieve a smooth storytelling of the whole story and subsequent integration with new products within the Overwatch universe. Most other games are not positioned this way, and their developers do not offer the opportunity to get acquainted with any aspects of the story personally. For more audience reach, the developers tried to integrate characters and locations from all over the world into Overwatch - this approach has long been used by large studios to create additional emotional involvement, as is the case with the same post-apocalyptic New York in The Division from Ubisoft. Whether such an approach is justified is difficult to say, but with the availability of resources, Blizzard makes it expedient to create precisely long-playing franchises.