Blizzard Debuts New Animated Short and Map for Overwatch

At a fan festival in South Korea, Blizzard released the newest animated short for Overwatch, which features pro gamer-turned-mech pilot D.Va. The short can be viewed below:

In “Shooting Star,” we get a closer look at D.Va’s life as a member of the MEKA squad, a group of elite pilots who protect South Korea from rampaging Omnic robots. It is the newest in a series of cinematics that have been released for Overwatch since the game’s release in 2016.

In addition to the new short, Blizzard also revealed Busan, a new Control map for the game. Players will fight to capture control points in an ancient temple, a downtown city area, and the MEKA base itself. Busan is currently playable on the PC version of Overwatch via the Public Test Region, and will come to live versions of the game on all platforms at a later date.

Overwatch, the first new franchise that Blizzard has launched since the 1998 release of StarCraft, has proven to be a monumental success for the studio. The Overwatch League inaugural season just wrapped up, where the London Spitfire swept the Philadelphia Fusion to become the league’s first championship team. The first matches of the 2018 Overwatch World Cup started last week, and the top eight teams will battle for supremacy in November at BlizzCon in Anaheim, California.

Blizzard is currently holding a free weekend for the game on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, and it will run until August 27 at 11:59pm PDT. All 28 characters and 18 maps are accessible during the free weekend, and progression will carry over to the full game if players decide to pick it up.

Kyle Flory

Kyle is a lifelong gamer and writer who studied English at Cal State San Bernardino. He has been a PlayStation fan since the release of Sony's original console and puts most of his game time in on his PS5. He loves Metal Gear Solid, and is currently working on getting platinum trophies for every game in the series.