There’s a lot to be said about a company that are willing to put a lot of time and money into creating promotional videos that aren’t just slow-motion, fade-to-black trailers with an acoustic cover of a Gary Numan song as the soundtrack. With their animated shorts for Overwatch, Blizzard are showing how to beat Pixar at their own game.
The latest of these shorts, The Last Bastion, tries to do what many might think impossible: humanise the absolute bastard that is Bastion. Many Overwatch players see the Omnic relic as the go-to for the least skilled as he really doesn’t need someone to have hours of the game to be able to master him – just turn into a turret and shoot.
Bastion might be the least popular of all the heroes in Overwatch, but judging by his tragic story in The Last Bastion, some might have more sympathy for him from now on.
We see Bastion lying dormant in a forest before he is inadvertently reactivated by a bird, who we have come to know as Ganymede. Covered in moss, Bastion wanders through the forest and enjoys nature before a woodpecker triggers his PTSD and he goes on a tree-killing rampage, scaring away his new bird friend in the process.
Knowing the danger he poses, Bastion sets off to leave the forest before coming across a field. On his way to the city in the distance, he bumps into a sea of destroyed Bastion units, making him flashback to a previous battle. We see Balderich, Reinhardt’s mentor (you can see the hero in the background), in action in a whirlwind of noise and chaos, again triggering Bastion to regress into a violent state.
He makes his way toward the city, but this time with murder on his mind. It isn’t until Ganymede turns back up and gives him a twig that Bastion realises violence isn’t the answer. He turns his back on the city and returns to the forest, presumably to build a log cabin that he and Ganymede can grow old together in.
The animated shorts for Overwatch aren’t even really necessary from a marketing perspective. Everybody knows Overwatch by now and what it’s about, so for Blizzard to take some time out and work on building this fantastical world they’ve created with beautiful animations and heart-rending stories, that deserves some kudos. If they keep at it like this, they might just have enough material for an Overwatch movie.
[interaction id=”57b6d236336e03ca34dfb56d”]Overwatch is my favourite game of the year so far and I imagine it is for many other people, too. The first new map for Overwatch was recently revealed and the second season of competitive play is just around the corner.
Undecided about Overwatch? Read my review here or check out the condensed version in the video below.
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