'Overwatch' And 'Diablo' Animated Series Reportedly In Development

Overwatch is a phenomenally popular video game that has proved to have quite a life outside the game itself.  The game has a large and colourful cast of characters, many of whom have become instantly iconic. Regular readers of this site will have most likely come across them in a series of fantastic CG animated shorts that introduce each character's story. We've covered them regularly, and commented on how we'd love to see a movie or series based on the franchise in that style.

Now it seems that we (and millions of others) could be in luck, as it's been reported that a series based on Overwatch could be on the way. We generally don't report on rumours, but this comes from a pretty legit source: Nick van Dyk the president of Activision Blizzard film and TV division (the studio behind the game). He has previously served as executive producer on the Skylanders Academy series.

He's written on his LinkedIn profile (via IGN) that "with my creative partner [I] developed and sold an animated series based on Blizzard's Overwatch franchise". There's been no official announcement as yet, but considering the source, it seems likely it won't be too far off.

The game has an existing world and large cast that it should be possible to create a hugely entertaining series about. The concern is that production values of the shorts may be too costly to maintain for a full series- would they opt for a cheaper animation style? With that said, Netflix's Love Death and Robots has certainly raised the bar on what's possible in TV animation on a technical level.

Still, it seems like a better fit for a series than a movie, with the sprawling cast too much to be able to justice to in a two-hour (or less) film.

That's not the only unannounced series revealed in his profile. He also lists an adaptation of the Diablo fantasy game "rendered in an anime style" as having been sold to Netflix. This sounds like something that will have been commissioned based on the success of the Castlevania series.

The fact that both this Diablo series and Skylanders both sold to Netflix makes it seem likely that the Overwatch series may eventually land there too.

As we said, there's been no official announcement of either project yet, so it's early days and its possible that either one or both may fail to materialise. But if they do, it's great news for both gamers and animation fans!