Back in March, Blizzard announced plans to dig deeper into the stories of its Overwatch heroes with animated shorts, digital comics, and a graphic novel entitled Overwatch: First Strike. It was intended to be written by Blizzard writer Micky Neilson, and would tell a tale of Soldier: 76, Torbjorn, Reaper, and Reinhardt during the Omnic Crisis that took place many years before the events of the game. Today, however, Blizzard announced that there's been a change of plan, and the novel has been shelved.
"I wanted to let you know that we have decided to cancel the release of the Overwatch: First Strike graphic novel. 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," Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu revealed on the Battle.net forums.
"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," he wrote. "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."
The good news is that while the graphic novel is canned, Blizzard is well aware that Overwatch fans want to know the full story behind the team, "and it's one we still plan to tell." He added that there are a number of other Overwatch stories in development "that will delve deeper into the world and its heroes," that will be revealed "in the coming months."
