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Blizzard cancel the Overwatch: First Strike graphic novel

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The Overwatch: First Strike graphic novel has been cancelled. The comic was planned to tell the game’s origin story, detailing the founding of Overwatch during the Omnic Crisis, but that tale will now be told some other time, perhaps even another way. 

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In a post on the Battle.net forums, lead writer Michael Chu announced the news.

“I wanted to let you know that we have decided to cancel the release of the Overwatch: First Strike graphic novel,” he says. “While we are grateful to the team for the fantastic work they put into it, we’ve ultimately decided to take the story in a different direction.

“The original idea for the graphic novel dates back to the early days of the game’s development and came from our desire to tell the story of the founding of Overwatch during the Omnic Crisis. In the years since First Strike’s conception, we have done a lot of development on the universe and its stories. While the core of this story remains, we have changed and expanded upon how we see the events that took place during the first days of Overwatch.”

So, basically, Blizzard now have a completely different vision for how those early events played out, and First Strike no longer fits with that vision. Blizzard are known for keeping a handle on their lore, so it’s clearly not a decision that they made lightly – it just highlights how quickly things can change in Videogame Land.

Still, Blizzard are at least planning to tell us a story of those early days, just not via First Strike.

“So for now the early adventures of Gabriel Reyes, Jack Morrison, Ana Amari, Reinhardt Wilhelm, Torbjörn Lindholm (and more!) wait for another day,” Chu explains. “But we know that this is a story that you are excited about, and it’s one we still plan to tell.

“I’d like to thank everyone for the enthusiasm, passion, and support you’ve shown towards the Overwatch universe. We have a number of stories in development that will delve deeper into the world and its heroes, and we can’t wait to share them with you in the coming months.”