Core Media and History

A deck by Omar Ortega · 7 cards

The primary video game releases and development history of the franchise.

Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (2004) as well as the multi million-selling video game franchises Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch. The company also operates Battle.net, an online gaming service.

Jeff Kaplan

Jeffrey Kaplan is an American video game designer who founded game developer Kintsugiyama and is the game director for their upcoming game The Legend of California. He was formerly vice president of Blizzard Entertainment, a position he held until he left the company in 2021. During his time with Blizzard, he was most known for designing elements of World of Warcraft and was the lead director of Overwatch (2016).

Overwatch (digital comic series)

Overwatch is a digital comic series published online by Blizzard Entertainment and republished by Dark Horse Comics, featuring events surrounding the characters of the Overwatch universe. It was published between April 2016 and April 2018.

Development of Overwatch

Overwatch is a team-based first-person shooter developed by Blizzard Entertainment and released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in May 2016. The game, while having several different play modes, generally features two teams of six players each, selecting pre-made heroes from the game's roster, to either attack or defend various objective points on the game's maps. The game supports casual game modes as well as ranked competitive play. Since release, Overwatch has been both critically and financially successful, with a player base of 35 million players as of October 2017.

Overwatch (2023 video game)

Overwatch is a 2023 first-person hero shooter video game by Blizzard Entertainment. As a sequel and replacement to the 2016 hero shooter Overwatch, the game includes new game modes and a reduction in team size from six to five. The game is free-to-play on Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S and features full cross-platform play.

BlizzCon

BlizzCon is an annual gaming convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to promote its major franchises including Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch.

Overwatch

Overwatch is a multimedia franchise centered on a series of multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) video games developed by Blizzard Entertainment. Overwatch was released in 2016. Overwatch 2 was released in 2022 and the original game was taken offline upon its release, though Blizzard renamed it back to Overwatch in 2026. Overwatch features hero-based combat between two teams of players fighting over various objectives, along with other traditional gameplay modes.