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Blizzard’s Overwatch unveiling got the game industry and gamers everywhere buzzing like they haven’t in a long time. But what’s the source of all this good will? Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett believes that it’s due to the fact that Overwatch, above all else, looks like fun. When so many other so-called “AAA” games are exploring the darkest recesses of the human mind, Blizzard is running in the opposite direction to deliver a game that evokes the best Saturday morning cartoons without being childish:
Consider the vast majority of blockbuster video game releases. They usually star men. Those men are scowling. They’re involved in bloody violence of the grimmest sort. The lighting is dark, and smoky, and hostile. From Call of Duty to Battlefield, Assassin’s Creed to Far Cry (and most games in between), the big games from big teams share a very similar tone. And that tone isn’t very fun.
Now consider Overwatch’s reveal. Happy kids, a talking ape, a very chirpy British girl. It didn’t really seem like a video game trailer at all, did it? People compared (wrongly, I think) the art design to Pixar, but they’re close: it felt like a Pixar movie, with a youthful sense of joy and excitement.
In this business, that’s pretty rare!
You can read the rest of the article at Kotaku.
