Before there was Uprising, Blizzard Entertainment actually had plans to layout the Overwatch universe with First Strike. A graphic novel penned by the game’s writer Michael Chu, First Strike would have laid much of the groundwork for the setting. It was canceled because the team wanted to go in a different direction. Speaking to Polygon, director Jeff Kaplan offered a more detailed explanation on this.
Noting that it was a “really hard decision”, Kaplan said that, “The art was beautiful and the writing was excellent. The reason had less to do with the specific content in that novel and more to do with the way that it would have limited us. It was a very specific, contained story.
“We sort of saw Overwatch really open up to the world, and listening to players and the stories they were telling and what they imagined the Omnic crisis to be really made us second guess what we were doing in First Strike. We thought, ‘Hey, if we go down this path, it really closes all these doors.'”
Kaplan also feels that the game’s “magic” comes from Blizzard not divulging the entire story. “There’s a lot going on in Overwatch right now where I think that the story in players’ heads is often even cooler than what we can deliver to them.”
What are your thoughts on this approach, especially with Overwatch’s Anniversary Event coming up? Let us know in the comments.