Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Described as a "hero shooter", Overwatch assigns players into two teams of six, with each player selecting from a large roster of characters, known as "heroes", with unique abilities.
Overwatch is an online team-based game generally played as a first-person shooter. The game features several different game modes, principally designed around squad-based combat with two opposing teams of six players each. Players select one of over two dozen pre-made hero characters from one of three class types: Damage heroes that deal most of the damage to attack or defend control points, Tank heroes that can absorb a large amount of damage, and Support heroes that provide healing or other buffs for their teammates.Each hero has a unique skill kit, defining their intrinsic attributes like health points and running speed, their primary attacks, several active and passive skills, and an ultimate ability that can only be used after it has been charged through dealing damage to enemies and healing allies. Players can change their hero during the course of a match, as a goal of Overwatch's design was to encourage dynamic team compositions that adapt to the situation. The game's genre has been described by some journalists as a "hero shooter", due to its design around specific heroes and classes.
The game features game modes for casual play, competitive ranked play, and for supporting esports competitions including Blizzard's Overwatch League. These modes generally are centered around sequentially securing control of points on the map, or escorting a payload between points on the map, with one team attacking while the other defends. Other modes set aside for casual matches include solo and team deathmatch, capture-the-flag, and unique modes run during various seasonal events. More recent updates have enabled users to craft their own game modes with a limited set of scripting tools. New characters and maps have been added regularly to the game since launch, expanding the original hero roster from 21 to 32 by April 2020. Regardless of winning or losing a match, players gain experience towards a player level, and on gaining a new level, receive loot boxes that contain cosmetic items that they can use to customize the appearance of the hero characters but otherwise does not affect gameplay. Loot boxes can also be purchased through microtransactions.
The backstory to Overwatch is described through animated shorts and other information distributed by Blizzard in promoting the game.
Overwatch is set sixty years into the future of a fictionalized Earth, thirty years after the resolution of what is known as the "Omnic Crisis." Before the Omnic Crisis, humanity had been in a golden age of prosperity and technology development. Humans developed robots with artificial intelligence called "Omnics", which were put to use to achieve economic equality, and began to be treated as people in their own right. The Omnic Crisis began when the worldwide automated "omnium" facilities that produced them started producing a series of lethal, hostile robots that attacked humankind. Initially, individual countries responded with various programs: the United States developed its Soldier Enhancement Program to produce elite fighters, for example, while Germany assembled the knight-like Crusaders. When these efforts failed to ward off the Omnics, the United Nations quickly formed Overwatch, an international task force combining these individual programs to combat this threat and restore order.
Two veteran soldiers from the Soldier Enhancement Program were put in charge of Overwatch: Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison. Though Overwatch successfully quelled the robotic uprising and brought many talented individuals to the forefront, a rift developed between Reyes and Morrison. Morrison was made the leader of Overwatch while Reyes was given charge of Blackwatch, Overwatch's covert operations division, fighting terrorist organizations like Talon, a group that appears to be trying to start a second Omnic Crisis, and Null Sector, a group of Omnics that revolted against the society that persecuted Omnics following the first Crisis. Overwatch continued to maintain peace across the world for several decades in what came to be called the "Overwatch Generation" as the team gained more members, but the rift between Morrison and Reyes intensified. Several allegations of wrongdoing and failures were leveled at Overwatch, leading to a public outcry against the organization and in-fighting between its members, prompting the UN to investigate the situation. During this, anexplosion destroyed Overwatch's headquarters in Switzerland, purportedly killing Morrison and Reyes among others. The UN passed the Petras Act, which dismantled Overwatch and forbade any Overwatch-type activity.
Overwatch is set six years after the Petras Act; without Overwatch, corporations have started to take over, fighting and terrorism have broken out in parts of the globe, and there are signs of a second Omnic Crisis occurring in Russia. The intelligent gorilla Winston, a former member of Overwatch, decides to begin reforming Overwatch to protect the peace once again despite the Petras Act, with the team members recruiting old friends and gaining new allies in their fight. It is revealed that Reyes and Morrison were not killed in the explosion resulting from their battle: Morrison became a masked vigilante known as "Soldier: 76", who is trying to uncover the reasons why Overwatch was shut down, while Reyes joined Talon and became "Reaper", a terrorist disguised as Death.