The robotic heroes of Blizzard Entertainment’s futuristic online shooter may soon be the stars of an Overwatch movie, thanks to the success of the popular animated short films. The game itself doesn’t offer much in the way of storytelling or character exposition, so Blizzard has filled in some of the gaps with a series of origin stories detailing the various heroes’ rise to power.
The production and direction of the Overwatch animated shorts has always been top-notch, and the gorgeous animation rivals that of Pixar. Eight shorts have been released so far, and they are truly a labor of love for the studio. Some of the clips even played in theaters across the country as part of the game’s launch events.
“The animated shorts are probably the thing that we have the most fun making,” director Jeff Kaplan told Polygon earlier this year. “We really love working with our animation group and digging out the stories not tied to any constraints of gameplay — we can tell any stories we want.” You can check out more behind-the-scenes info in a short “making of” documentary about the Rise and Shine episode.
There’s no doubt the studio has the talent and expertise for a full-length animated film, something fans have been clamoring for since the first cinematic trailer was released. Now, a representative from Blizzard has confirmed that they’re fully in support of the idea too.
“We would like that very much,” Tim Kilpin of Activision said to MCVUK in a recent interview. “These franchises exist across multiple platforms, so it’s not just the game as a driver, but it’s linear content [movies and TV] as a way to expand the audience.”
With more than 35 million players, an Overwatch movie would certainly have worldwide appeal, considering the popularity of the game in huge markets like China. Hit video games rarely translate into box-office success, however, as Blizzard’s own venture with their live-action Warcraft movie illustrated.
In the more immediate future, Activision is currently exploring the possibilities for a Call of Duty film. “Anytime you take a franchise as storied as this, with this kind of legacy, and expand it into a new form factor you have to be really careful,” Kilpin cautioned. “So frankly, if the script and the story isn’t right, we won’t do it.”
While a full-length movie may be years away, several more origin features are planned to round out the second season of the animated shorts. With more than 20 appealing characters to draw from, it’s a sure bet they won’t run out of story ideas any time soon.
The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.
After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.
Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.
Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”
It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.
Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.