Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch will be heading into open beta when May starts after a routinely successful closed beta. The IP itself has seen an astounding amount of success with merchandise, cosplays and fan interest through the roof before the game has even launched.
However, when Overwatch emerged from the ashes of Blizzard’s cancelled MMO Titan, the development team wasn’t in the best spot. Speaking to GameSpot, designer Jeff Kaplan said that the team failed pretty heavily with Titan.
“You had a really amazing group that was working on Titan. They were really talented individuals, but we failed horrifically in every way. In every way that a project can fail. It was devastating.
“I think there was this inward embarrassment of like, ‘No, we need to prove that we’re worthy of being at Blizzard too. We can make something that makes the company proud.’ We saw it as a last chance. We use the phrase often, ‘You’re only as good as your last game,’ so you don’t get big headed…my most recent game was an utter failure called Titan that got cancelled. [We asked], ‘What can I do next to prove that’s not who I am?’”
Overwatch’s true success will be determined when the game is actually out on May 24th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC but there’s no denying that Kaplan and his team have left behind the failures of Titan for the better.