News

Thank you Overwatch, for giving us another kick-ass videogame mom

Ana Amari, Blizzard Entertainment’s latest Overwatch character, is not like the mothers we’ve seen in videogames past, though she started out that way. When the game first released, Ana’s role was not unlike the “long dead moms” that dominate the medium; like Ellie’s mother Anna from The Last of Us (2013), or Faith Connors’ mom in Mirror’s Edge (2008), Ana was the missing mother of Overwatch hero Pharah. Despite the speculation of a heroic backstory, Pharah’s mother did not have a voice—until now. Blizzard recently released a free digital comic giving history and life to Ana Amari—not only Pharah’s mother, but Overwatch’s…

Feature

Overwatch and the pleasure of transmedia narratives

Before Winston, a glasses-clad gorilla scientist, was leaping across maps to crush his enemies in the chaotic multiplayer battles of Overwatch, he was merely a young ape with big aspirations and an affinity for peanut butter. But you wouldn’t know that from merely playing the game. You’ll find no calculated, story-driven campaign in Blizzard’s competitive team-based multiplayer shooter. Overwatch’s character-driven narrative is instead trickled elsewhere: in genuinely endearing animated shorts, character-focused one-off webcomics, and short website-bound character biographies. The latter-most isn’t uncommon within videogames, the second less so, and the first is the most uncommon of them all, the three…

Article

League of Legends and the problem of online communities

If you liked what you read, why not back us on Kickstarter? Early last Friday, just before the opening remarks of “Tribeca Games Presents: The Craft and Creative of League of Legends,” I sat next to a young man named Will, who told me he had come all the way from Daytona Beach, Florida. I asked him if it was a business trip; this was the first time Riot and Tribeca Games had ever put on an event like this. There were a few hundred people present; it’s not the sort of thing I would expect fans to pilgrimage over. “No,”…