'Overwatch' News: Blizzard Entertainment Shares Behind-the-Scenes in the Making of 'Rise and Shine' Animated Short
The past week, Blizzard Entertainment shared a behind-the-scenes video of how the developers created a recently released animated short titled "Rise and Shine."
"Rise and Shine" was an animated short released in August that focused on telling the backstory of character Mei. It featured how Mei came to terms with the drastic changes she encountered once she woke up from being cryogenically frozen.
The video shared some clips showing how developers worked on creating Mei, her appearance and her movements.
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Game director Jeff Kaplan also reiterated in the video that they wanted to "introduce the world to a whole new universe" and one way of doing that was by producing animated shorts.
While the game has become one of the widely supported and played eSports in the world, the developers also stated that making animated shorts like "Rise and Shine" has also played an essential part in promoting the entire franchise.
Nathan Schauf, senior editor for the game's animation, stated that the materials released other than the base game and its add-on contents such as the "Rise and Shine" animated short have helped a lot in allowing people to learn more about "Overwatch's" story.
"All the players, especially the Blizzard fan base... all the people that weren't familiar with Blizzard's game got emotionally connected to characters through the storytelling that we create," Schauf said.
Meanwhile, "Overwatch" lead writer Michael Chu revealed that Mei's backstory had also been one of the materials that they were most excited to work on. Chu said they have always had the idea of telling a story behind Mei's characteristics -- even her physical features -- that included a tragic, very sad past.
The developers were then led to the importance of telling the story of how Mei became a hero from just being a normal human being.
Mei has been one of the interesting characters in a game that has been known for having a very long list of game personalities with uniques traits and stories that matter just as much as how strong they are as playable game contents.
Developer George Krstic added that what made Mei even more interesting was the fact that she started out as just an observer before becoming one of the most active players in the game.
The developers agreed that what also made Mei stand out among the other playable characters was her having traits that let her become even more relatable for humans. Chu commented that one of the main strengths Mei had was not her weapons but her perseverance.
