Overwatch

Overwatch League’s Code Of Conduct Got Leaked [UPDATE]

Esports broadcaster Richard Lewis posted a scanned hard copy of what he says is the Overwatch League rulebook today—about two months after commissioner Nate Nanzer said he would but still hasn’t done so. What the 35-page leaked documents show is incredibly sweeping. If these rules are still in place, it means that Blizzard owns the…

Overwatch League Star’s Long Break Is Well Deserved

Most everyone who watches professional Overwatch remembers the January night when “Big Boss” Kim “Pine” Do-hyeon casually laid waste to an entire enemy team like he was a grown adult at a county fair popping balloons with darts. Pine’s celebrity grew as his wild, risky plays became even wilder and riskier. Then, without much warning,…

How Esports Gambling Works

The first few months of Overwatch League’s inaugural season have already resulted in unexpected upsets, emerging tactics, and drama between players that has resulted in pros getting fined, benched, or released from teams. That stuff isn’t just fun to follow and grist for the content mines: it’s moving betting lines. Overwatch is the newest league…

An Overwatch Pro Is Turning The Game’s Zen Monk Into A Vicious Killer

Overwatch’s healer-monk Zenyatta floats cross-legged while delivering voice lines like “embrace tranquility” and “be one with the universe.” He was a frail, peace-loving healer, it seemed—until Sung-hyeon “JJonak” Bang’s January debut in the Overwatch League. Four days after the League launched, JJonak’s Zenyatta exacted an absolutely bonkers 10,764 damage, 24% of his entire team’s output…

How To Get Decent At Overwatch

Overwatch is a very approachable first-person shooter, but if you’ve watched the pros, then you know that the game has a high skill ceiling. How the hell do they do thing with the backline flank and the Pulse Bomb without dying? Surely you want to do that, too, and feel like a champ. (Maybe you…

Overwatch Coach Issues Apology For Being Kind Of Clumsy

David “dpei” Pei, head coach for the LA Gladiators Overwatch League team, bumped into two Houston Outlaws players backstage last night and issued a real head-scratcher of an apology for it: “Yesterday during the Outlaws match, I inadvertently bumped into two of the Outlaws players. I hadn’t been watching where I was going. I was…

Behind The Scenes Of The Creation Of Brigitte, Overwatch’s Newest Hero

No pictures today on Fine Art. Instead, we’ve got a video narrated by Blizzard Art Lead Ben Zhang, who takes us behind the scenes of Brigitte’s creation. It’s nice to see a major studio take the time out to detail the process like this, as we see Brigitte’s journey from comic character to playable member…

Pro Gamers Are Getting Serious About Unionizing

Former Overwatch pro and coach Thomas “Morte” Kerbusch has partnered with sports labor attorney Ellen Zavian to push towards unionizing, according to a report from Liz Mullen in Sports Business Journal. Meanwhile, the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pro scene is also forming a players association, thanks to the efforts of Scott “SirScoots” Smith, a longtime esports…

Junkrat Sucks

The worst feeling in a first-person shooter is having absolutely no idea why you died. Overwatch took that feeling, compressed it into a small Australian man, and armed it with grenades. Junkrat is Overwatch trash. Every game against him turns Overwatch’s impeccably-designed maps into booby-trapped dumpsters overflowing with exploding little Junkrat shits. As his teammate,…

Introducing… Jetpack Cat. Jetpack Cat isn’t an official Overwatch hero (yet), but this faux-hero-introduction video from To Binge does a great job of illustrating why the scrapped idea turned incessant in-joke would be perfect for the job. Please Blizzard, let us have this. Let us have this or you will never hear the end of…

New Overwatch Fan Animation Shows Dva As An Irredeemable Jerk

Overwatch is a game that demands respect, or at least, a little reverence. That’s why Dopatwo’s profane and ungodly Overwatch parodies are so righteously funny. No hero escapes with their dignity. Dopatwo is a YouTube channel featuring animations about games like Dota 2 and Overwatch. Many of the shorts satirize particular Overwatch heroes.Yesterday’s cartoon, “Enemy…

The Rock Climbing Walls In Overwatch, Reviewed

When Overwatch unveiled new map Horizon Lunar Colony last summer, players were quick to catalog its every feature and develop strategies for how best to defend or attack the moon base. There are airlocks that lead to the surface of the moon, a single mega health pack right next to the first point, stacks of…

Overwatch Pros Introduce Themselves By Singing Frozen In Korean

Overwatch League’s minor league, Contenders, kicked off with a bang over the weekend. Also, karaoke. Overwatch Contenders tournaments will be running for the next couple months in seven regions, one of which is Korea. As part of an official segment showcasing the competitors, two players from a team called Foxes belted a stirring rendition of…

Overwatch Ships Are All About Filling In The Blanks

Ever since Brigitte was introduced as a new hero for Overwatch, some fans have been excitedly shipping her with D.va, in a pairing called Mekamechanic. We don’t know a lot about Brigitte, but that’s part of what makes this pairing work: Fans can just make it up as they go along. While some ships are…

Overwatch Pro Stomps Former Team That Benched Him

It’s been a good day for Chan-hyung “Fissure” Baek. The tank player, who spent stage one on the bench as part of London Spitfire, came roaring out the gate with his new team, LA Gladiators, and stomped London, likely giving their management some things to think about in the process. From start-to-finish of today’s Overwatch…

Popular Twitch Mod Is Sorry For All The Revenge Porn [UPDATE]

This past Wednesday, a former moderator for Overwatch League’s Twitch channel who goes by the handle Uncleswagg posted about having been unceremoniously demoted from his duties with no explanation from Blizzard. On Thursday, former Blizzard employee and World of Warcraft streamer Cher Scarlett came forward to say that Uncleswagg had non-consensually posted naked photographs of…

A Quick Roundup Of The Overwatch League’s Latest Punishments

Overwatch League just announced a couple of punishments for several players, including two of Dallas Fuel’s notorious troublemakers. Timo “Taimou” Kettunen has received a $1,000 fine for calling another player a “fucking faggot kid” on his personal Twitch channel this past January. Félix “xQc” Lengyel has gotten hit with a $4,000 fine and a four-match…

Overwatch League’s Dallas Fuel Is Not Having A Good Time Right Now

It’s been a rough past few days of a rough month of a rough first season for Dallas Fuel, the Overwatch League’s most star-studded team. Today alone, one member, Timo “Taimou” Kettunen, finally apologized for using a homophobic slur on stream, while another, Félix “xQc” Lengyel, said he might quit the team entirely. Taimou used…

Yes, Give Mercy Two Guns

I used to main Mercy. Now I don’t even play Overwatch. Partly because the growing obsession with the game’s meta among friends was poison to my casual Overwatch habits, but also because Mercy only had one gun. As a Battle Mercy guy, healing always came secondary to the accuracy and range of her pistol, and…

Zarya Cosplay Flexes Some Muscles

On the left is Zarya, hero of the Overwatch universe. On the right, regular human Mina Petrovic with one of the best pieces of Zarya cosplay we’ve ever seen. The suit is amazing! The hair is also very well done, with a lot more work being done that just wearing a wig or dying her…