Vendetta Takes Back Talon In The First Ever Year-Long Story In Overwatch (No “2”, Blizzard’s Dropping That)

Blizzard is taking a different approach when it comes to storytelling in the Overwatch universe this year. Today, Game Director Aaron Keller shared plans for the future of the free-to-play team shooter in a Spotlight video. The approximately half-hour-long video laid out plans for the game’s narrative, kicking off on February 10. The narrative is unique in Overwatch as it has a full arc that takes place in the span of a year (or six seasons) beginning with Season 1: Conquest.

Titled the "Reign of Talon", the story begins with the cinematic revealed at the beginning of the stream today, in which Vendetta makes her move to take back Talon. Even as someone who doesn’t play Overwatch, I have to say the short is pretty epic. The story will run across all six seasons, and a new story will begin with the first season of 2027.

The story will be told across a variety of media. Of course, there will be in-game content, including special events. And Blizzard is always big on the trailers. So there will be plenty of that as well. Players can also expect short stories and comics to help fill in the rest of the lore. The good news is that all of it will be available in the game. So you don’t have to go hunting for it on websites or elsewhere.

Blizzard is also rolling out all the stops since this year is the tenth anniversary of Overwatch. This starts with the fact that they’re upping the number of hero releases this year to ten. Half of those will drop with Season 1 – including some I know I’ve seen players theorizing about, such as Emre and Anran (Wuyang’s older sister), and some that might be a surprise, such as a fat orange cat with hover tech literally named Jetpack Cat. (I don’t know whether the cat will be a blessing or a curse for Overwatch. We all know about orange cats and their shared braincell.)

Season 1 will introduce sub-roles to the game. DPS will have four sub-roles, while Healer and Tank will have three each. This won’t be a case of picking a character and then deciding which sub-role you’d like to use. Instead, the character chosen determines the sub-role. So, players will want to think about what they want to do before choosing who to play. Each sub-role and its related characters are listed in the patch notes on the Overwatch site.

Oh, and there’ll be an Overwatch x Hello Kitty Collaboration available when Season 1 launches.

The update will also include a major overhaul of the game’s systems, intended to streamline things and address player complaints about things like moving around the menus. For instance, they’re creating a notification hub and the stadium to make things easier to find. There will also be a competitive reset featuring rewards related to Talon.

Finally, you’ll notice I haven’t referred to the game as Overwatch 2. That’s because there was an announcement during the livestream that Blizzard has decided to drop the “2” and will simply be referring to everything related to the Overwatch universe as simply Overwatch. (I’m pretty sure that’s what we were all calling it when we weren’t having to write about it formally anyway.)