# the creative bankruptcy of blizzard's overwatch > is this your progress? is this the shit that's supposed to knock our socks off? > ~ dawn of the dead's captain rhodes consider how blizzard's new old ip "overwatch" works better as an animated feature stuffed full of cliches than just another unnecessary garme. people were warning about such ominous trends back in 2011 yet here overwatch - another shining symbol of the industry's near total creative bankruptcy here's a remix of blizzard's official description of teh garme the underwhelming action of overwatch takes place in a technologically advanced highly stylized yet bland future earth. in a time of global crisis an international task force of soldiers scientists adventurers and oddities known as overwatch (aka the order: 1886?) had come together to 'restore peace through superior firepower' to a war-torn world. after many years the group's influence waned and it was eventually disbanded - hey just like the killer 7! overwatch might be gone now but the world still needs heroes.. apparently with an emphasis on easily monetizable dumbing-down 'accessibility' and pure fun® overwatch brings blizzard's signature easy-to-learn grind-to-master garmeplay to the oh-so-tired fps genre. harnessing the power of ir hero of choice players will join forces in teams of six and battle each other across a range of blandly futuristic global locations from the hologram-lit streets of london to a bazaar in the no-doubt jaggy shadows of a high-tech egyptian pyramid. every battlefield is meant to be read as 'iconic' and built to highlight each character's non-unique abilities and fights can shift from streets to rooftops to open skies within the span of a breath by easily impressed mouth breathing fanboys and other hardcore neckbeards overwatch is our lifeless corporate take on a seemingly vibrant near-future universe with 'amped-up' characters and action-packed team-based garmeplay," said mike ceo and co-founder of blizzard entertainment. with every new blizzard garme we look at our favorite (ka-ching!-able) aspects of a genre and put our own bland spin on things. our goal with overwatch is to create 'an awesome fps experience' that's more *cough* accessible to a much wider dumber audience while delivering all the action and shallow depth that shooter flans love to pay out hard e-cash for the dull sickeningly disneyesque heroes of overwatch each bring ir own indistinct weapons and super-abilities to bear. here's just a glimpse of the numerous heroes that will ultimately fill overwatch's disappointing rosters "tracer" a former british test pilot who shrugs at danger can execute impossible acrobatic assaults thanks to ir ability to teleport drop energy bombs and even reverse time (hopefully far back to some vaguely imagined better time when garmes sucked less) "reinhardt" a hulking german soldier in battle armor can charge great distances and pin ir enemies to a wall or slam the ground with ir rocket hammer to knock them off ir feet - ironically something that overwatch fails to do utterly with its uninspiring design "hanzo" a ridiculous bow-wielding japanese mercenary has the ability to scale walls with ir bare hands fire off a tracking device that illuminates nearby enemies for ir team and unleash a huge spirit dragon that does grievous damage to all listless enemies in its lazy path "symmetra" an indian architech manipulates light and energy to shield ir allies and damage ir enemies - and they can turn the tide of any battle by building a device that instantly transports ir teammates to the front lines (when in fact they'd rather be back home quietly contemplating air control) // video here dig how at 3:04 the security guard is totally ignoring what's happening on screen - as though overwatch is foreseeing its own forgettable near-future destiny interesting how most of these so-called heroes are now mercenaries - even errorists(tm) according to official backstory. why couldn't they have just been plain villains? (not that any of the characters shown aren't precisely that; plain and uninteresting) developmental hypocrisy and hype when (admittedly shay dee style) developers from korea clone team fortress 2 as h.a.v.e online it's branded a shameless rip off - yet when an american developer / publisher does the exact same thing it's widely applauded perhaps the truer relationship of overwatch to blizzard's failed project titan is not just the pursuit of something smaller scale 'simpler and more fun' after the unfortunate failure of some grand mmo vision - but just smells like a quick cheap switch to "ftp plan: b" the industrial (garmes industry) scale cynicism of such a move is not to be underestimated; one is reminded of (conservative reactionary nutbar) james howard kunstler discussing the all too common 3am design practices of 'places not worth caring about' > you know this is a building designed like a dvd player. audio jack power supply.. and - look you know these things are important architectural jobs for firms right? you know we hire firms to design these things. you can see exactly what went on 3 o'clock in the morning the design meeting you know 8 hours before deadline four architects trying to get this building in on time right? and they're sitting there at the long boardroom table with all the drawings and the renderings and all the chinese food caskets are lying on the table and - i mean what was the conversation that was going on there? because you know what the last word was. what the last sentence was - of that meeting. it was: "flock it." (laughter and applause) > that - that is the message of this form of architecture! the message is - we don't give a flock! likewise one may consider overwatch and its clones equally unworthy of our time attention and admiration // republic of bob