But Mizuki’s real strength, I think, is in his chain grapple. He shoots it out at people to tie them up, again like a Mortal Kombat character, but this time like Scorpion. However, he doesn’t pull enemies to him; he just holds them in place. This can stop enemies dead in their tracks, so it’s super useful for holding quick characters who try to sneak around. It will also bring down flying characters, so if you see a Pharah or a Jetpack Cat hovering over a cliff, tie them up with the Binding Chain and they’ll fall to their death. Lots of possibilities if you can aim it well.

Domina, the new tank, is a powerful presence, dressed for success with two floating robot arms that follow her. She’s all about barrier shields, but her shields are different from what we’ve seen before. Hers are made of hexagonal pieces that can be broken one by one, so the whole shield doesn’t disappear at once, like Reinhardt’s, for example – only parts of it do. Her ultimate ability also traps individual enemies inside their own personal shield, which then explodes.

To get the most out of Domina, you’ll need to get good with her laser rifle, which is like a railgun with a delayed blast. As you shoot it, it builds up power to release a final, stronger blast, meaning you have to keep aiming at your target for a second or so. Some of my opponents during the test showed me how damaging this can be when used well.

“The strategy that we would like to go forward with is to find a way to start every year off for Overwatch with a really big, ambitious moment like this” -Aaron Keller

The last of the heroes, Emre, doesn’t sound exciting on paper. He’s very similar to Soldier 76, the character who runs and shoots, and is a bit of a nod to players who like regular first-person shooter games. Emre is the same kind of character – he even lets you aim down the sights for the first time in Overwatch. He has a grenade (one that bounces) and a smaller gun that steals health, which temporarily makes him jump farther and move faster. Along with a special ability that makes his health heal quicker, it means he’s a very forgiving hero, a bit of an all-rounder.

But there’s potential here. Emre’s main weapon hits instantly – meaning your shots will land on a target the moment you shoot – which means he can do a lot of damage from far away, especially against annoying flying characters. His ultimate ability is also one of the most scary I faced during our test. Emre shouts and then turns into a glowing AI person, floats in the air, and fires powerful, explosive blasts that can wipe out groups of enemies.

There’s something to like in all the heroes, no matter how you like to play, and having them all arrive in the game at once will make a big difference. We’ve rarely, if ever, had to add so many heroes at once, so there will be a time of big changes as people figure out how to use them. And then there will be five more. Just as we get used to these heroes, another one will arrive, and then another, and then another. This can’t help but mess up the game’s balance this year, even though Blizzard tells me they have ways to deal with it now. But does it matter? Isn’t the chaos a big part of the excitement and fun?

Yearly Big Updates Forever More

As big as this moment is – and Aaron Keller tells me “this is our most ambitious launch that we’ve ever had for Overwatch,” and “the biggest year we’ve ever had” – Blizzard doesn’t seem to think of it as a relaunch, even if I do. “We think about it more as a big expansion moment for the game,” Keller says when we talk. But they’re not calling them expansions either, which is confusing. It’s more accurate to think of them as year-long plans that start with a big event and then continue with several smaller seasons throughout the year. This year is called The Reign of Talon, for example, which will have six seasons within it (roughly one every couple of months, it seems). The important thing to understand is that each season will be like the regular Overwatch updates from the past, so these big expansion-like drops are in addition to that, not instead of it. We’re getting a lot more overall with this new way of doing things.

“If you look at the year we’re just starting, yes, we have this huge event at the beginning, and we do want to do something big next year,” Keller tells me. “But at the same time, we are releasing a new hero every season this year, and it’s something we’ve never done before. So this is, in essence, us really committing to something bigger.”

As suggested there, the plan is to do this same thing every year, which I guess makes the game more like World of Warcraft and Diablo, which are also trying to have yearly big updates with several smaller updates in between. “The plan we want to follow is to find a way to start every year for Overwatch with a really big, exciting moment like this,” Keller says. “Okay, we don’t think every one of them is going to be the same. We don’t want a simple pattern for it, but we would like a moment where everyone can pay attention and say, ‘Wow, look what Overwatch is doing.'”

But don’t expect five new heroes every February. “This isn’t something we’re promising to do every year, and it’s not even something I think that if we could do it, we would want to do every year,” Keller says. So next year it might be a big change to maps and game modes, or something else entirely. “We do want there to be a bit of surprise and delight in how we put together some of these bigger releases for our players.”

And in case you’re wondering, these big updates will be free. “This is just part of how Overwatch works as a game that keeps getting updated,” Keller says. And in case you’re also wondering, with all the talk about new heroes, Blizzard isn’t forgetting the old ones. There’s a plan to spend a season this year making changes to some of them. “We would love to have a season this year that would be a rework season,” Keller says, “and so we’re talking about maybe halfway through the year where we release multiple hero changes and map changes at the same time.” As for which ones: “Oh, I think we’re going to keep that a secret.”

Story 2.0

Overwatch has always had a background story. Since the beginning, there have been impressive animated videos showing heroes and their pasts, as well as comic books and hidden clues in what characters say in the game. But until now, most of this story existed outside of the game, on the side. Now, in Reign of Talon, it’s being brought inside, to the front, in a story viewer part of the game. Stories are also changing to be year-long events with beginnings, middles, and big endings, instead of just occasional bits that come with new heroes a few times a year. This has led to a big change in how the game is made, allowing the designers to plan story arcs much further ahead and make them much bigger.

The Reign of Talon starts with a recently added hero named Vendetta cutting off the Talon leader Doomfist’s famous robotic arm, to take control of the bad guy group herself. Then she starts, well, The Reign of Talon. This begins with an attack on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, a map that has been in the game for a long time. What’s exciting about this is we’ll see the results of this attack in the game when we play.

“Watchpoint: Gibraltar is going to look very different,” says Keller during the press conference, “and even play differently.” Art director Dion Rogers explains more in a group interview, saying: “This time it’s not just adding a few things here and there, like some props and fire. Bridges are destroyed, there are new paths in the map. We’ve changed the level design to fit what’s happening in the story.”

Rogers continues, perhaps dreaming a little: “I can see this happening to a character, too, based on what’s going on. They might go through some kind of change that would affect how they play or maybe get some temporary new power for a little while. Or even how they look might change…”

Doomfist would be a perfect example for this idea, with him losing his special arm, but Blizzard isn’t ready to do that yet. “This isn’t going to mean a change for Doomfist,” Keller says. “We’re not taking him out of the game. There’s not going to be a version without the arm. But I don’t think it means that we wouldn’t do some of that stuff in the future… I think that when the game feels more connected to the story, it’s more powerful that way.”

Season 1 of The Reign of Talon will start the story, and in Season 5, “It’s all going to come to a big moment,” Keller says. “We’re going to have the big ending. And then if players really like this, that means Season 6 of this year is when we start setting up the next story with the newest hero we’ve made.”

But that’s not all. There’s going to be a five-week war between the good guys (Overwatch) and the bad guys (Talon) to really make this exciting. The cool part is you get to pick a side to join. Choose a side and complete missions to earn points for your team and rewards for yourself. “And at the end of the event,” Keller says, “depending on which side wins, we’re going to be making some changes to some of our maps to show which side won.”

I think this feels like Blizzard is trying to create a sense of teams fighting each other, like the Horde versus Alliance in World of Warcraft, but when I mentioned this to Keller, he seemed truly surprised. “Oh,” he says. “Hey, I used to be on the World of Warcraft team. We had a lot of people on Team 4 [the Overwatch team] who were on the World of Warcraft team. So when we think of something like the Ahn’Qiraj event, we have good memories of that.”

Overwatch as Blizzard’s Future Money-Maker

The clear message of the day is that Blizzard is very serious about Overwatch. “We see this business as something that will keep Overwatch going for the next 10 years,” says Walter Kong during the press conference – “that we don’t look at it as a quick race, but a long journey.” And while some of that might just be typical marketing talk, there’s a feeling that Blizzard has really worked hard and turned things around here, and that, with this new plan, they’re putting even more into the game going forward. Some of that is surely Blizzard’s stubbornness and pride, and a desire to make its hero shooter the best one out there again. But I believe there’s something else going on here too, and it’s a feeling that Overwatch is being made into a super-important brand for Blizzard in the future.

“It sets us up for a much broader conversation on where the future of this universe and these characters are going to go” -Johanna Faries

Listen to Blizzard president Johanna Faries’ opening remark from the press conference: “I think there’s a vision that Overwatch is a main support for Blizzard that we believe is a game that will last forever,” she says. “It’s not limited by time. It’s certainly not limited by numbers. And as we think about having a ‘forever game’ mindset for this world, not only for what it is today, but what it can keep growing into, with many different experiences – this is by no means the final step of what people should expect from the Overwatch world in terms of how Blizzard is going to embrace it. […] It gets us ready for a much bigger talk about where the future of this world and these characters are going to go.”

Add to that Walter Kong’s comments: “We have this wonderful group of heroes. We have values that I think are timeless, that fit today as well as they did 10 years ago – hope and optimism – and we want to be able to tell more stories and create more experiences within that game world, but it’s something we’re not rushing.”

“Multiple experiences,” “tell more stories,” “set up more experiences” – those are all signs that Blizzard is looking for ways to make Overwatch bigger, beyond what it’s doing now. Are those hints about other Overwatch games? Or are they talking about wanting to make movies about the team? Riot Games successfully turned League of Legends into a huge animated TV show called Arcane, though it cost a lot of money. Exactly what Blizzard is looking into, I don’t know, but it’s clear how important Overwatch is to the company. Most of all, it’s an exciting time to be an Overwatch player, and oh how I’ve wanted to say those words again.