Blizzard explains how the Overwatch 2 X One-Punch Man collab came to be, and the potential for more crossover content
More anime collabs incoming?
Earlier today, Blizzard announced a bunch of details for Overwatch 2: Season 3, and the breakdown included the reveal of a One-Punch Man collaboration. In a new interview with Comicbook.com, Overwatch 2’s commercial lead and VP Jon Spector and art director Dion Rogers opened up on how this tie-in came to be.
So, we really started seriously looking into these types of opportunities last year as we were prepping for the launch of Overwatch 2, and as we were sort of setting out to go find the right first collab. Like, we had a couple of tests that we thought about. The first was really basic. It was like, ‘Is this cool?’ And that was talking to our whole team about it, but also, you know, trying to put the lens on of Overwatch players and saying like, ‘Do we think our players will think this is cool?’ And then beyond that, we also started thinking about like which types of shows or places that we could collab with, had an art style that felt right for the game, and where we thought the characters would be cool to bring to life in the Overwatch universe. And so, as we were talking to Bandai Namco and evaluating some of the options, One-Punch Man kind of immediately jumped to the top as just this super fun world that they’ve created with these great iconic characters. And we loved – I think Dion can talk more about this – even as we just started sketching out what it could look like to bring One-Punch Man to life in Overwatch, we all just got so excited that we had to do it.
Collaborations with other franchises, especially to the degree we’re seeing with One-Punch Man, are extremely few and far between for Overwatch. Is this a sign that more tie-ins like this are in the works for Overwatch 2? According to the devs, that depends on how well this One-Punch Man collab works out.
I’d say at this point, we’re not sure. This is an opportunity for us to learn and understand ‘How much do players love this?’ We’re not imminently planning a second one. Like, there’s not another Season 4 major collab coming up, for example. But we do have a bunch of different ongoing conversations for us, things we’re excited about potentially bringing to life. And so, at least my own perspective is, I think we need to wait and see a little bit of how this first one goes. And I don’t wanna say that we know what the right answer is yet. I don’t think we do. I think we’re going to experiment with different things, see what works and sticks. But I love what we’ve been able to do here, and personally, I’d really be excited about being able to do more of this and to do it relatively frequently. But, you know, never to the point where every week you’re booting up Overwatch 2 and there’s a new set of characters that’s come in. I think there’s very clearly some point at which you’ve gone too far there.
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