Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan has given a lengthy interview on all things Overwatch, where he talked about six more heroes coming to the game, one of whom, Echo, was there on the artwork all along, their insistence on loot boxes and more.
Of course, don't be getting your hopes up for any immediate announcement because as Jeff from the Overwatch team says, Blizzard launching six heroes takes "years". We don't know whether she'll follow recently announced , but you can be sure she'll launch eventually.
Ironically enough, a classic concept art decision to fill out white space brought about the large letter A on Echo's forehead, so Overwatch's community mostly assumed that's Athena, Winston's artificial intelligence. Jeff insists however that Echo and Athena are two separate entities.
"She is somebody who we've been excited about for many, many years, and she was part of the original Overwatch characters Arnold concepted, so she's been in our thoughts for a long time", he said. The development team hope that this, along with the new animated short, goes to show that they have a clear plan for the game and the underlying story.
Asked about the possibility of cross-play in Overwatch, Kaplan was a bit slippery, albeit insisting that Blizzard are "discussions with the first-parties, Microsoft and Sony, to see where they're at and gauge where their temperature is at". Kaplan thinks the challenges involved are truly many, but they would apparently love to give it a go.
Blizzard were pretty clear on not taking Overwatch to the Nintendo Switch and although Kaplan was once again slippery, he says they're "very open-minded" about the possibility. After all, Paladins coming to the platform before Overwatch is almost an insult.
Blizzard
Kaplan also took the time to compliment Fortnite on their "brilliant" monetisation system, albeit conceding that Overwatch will stick to loot boxes, despite the ruling to remove them in . He also said that while the idea of a battle pass may sound enticing, switching to the model would probably be more trouble than it's worth.
You can check out Kaplan's full interview .
Overwatch: Winter Wonderland 2017
- Image: 1 / 20
