• Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

MadLaughter

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,090


www.michael-chu.com

Twenty Years — Michael Chu

When I first walked through the doors of Blizzard Entertainment twenty years ago, my only dream was to help make the games I had spent countless hours of my life playing. From the battles between the races of Azeroth in Warcraft to the corruption of humanity as pawns of the Eternal Conflict in Diabl

When I first walked through the doors of Blizzard Entertainment twenty years ago, my only dream was to help make the games I had spent countless hours of my life playing. From the battles between the races of Azeroth in Warcraft to the corruption of humanity as pawns of the Eternal Conflict in Diablo, I was lucky enough to tell stories in these amazing universes and help bring them to life. And I have had the great fortune to get to know and interact with the passionate global community that played our games.

These meetings, travels, and a desire to embrace the diversity of our world made it clear that there were different stories that needed to be told about places and people not traditionally seen in games. As an Asian American, I wanted to experience narratives that represented people like me and to see them depicted as heroes. Overwatch offered an opportunity to bring a more inclusive vision of earth to life: a future worth fighting for. Together, we worked, struggled, and shed tears to champion a universe that featured people from across the world, to bring to life the wondrous sights of earth's past, present, and future, and to empower the contributions of creators and voices who would better represent the breadth of human experience. I believed that a game could show the power of diversity and that one kiss could change the world, if only a little.

Overwatch has been a life-changing experience. I have always felt that games and the stories they tell have the unique ability to bring people closer together, and that the empathy you feel from stepping into someone else's shoes, even virtually, can bridge the gap between miles, cultures, and nations. Overwatch and its consistently generous and inspiring community have only reinforced that belief. I've heard stories of people learning a new language after hearing a line of dialogue, people feeling inspired to take a trip to a new place after "visiting" it in-game, and people meeting teammates across languages and borders to take up the cause of making our world a better place. But most of all: again and again, of people empathizing with a story about someone who is not the same as them.

Now, as I head out through the Blizzard doors for a last time, I have new dreams: to continue to tell these stories and build worlds that unite people through games. To help create an inclusive world where more people will want to share stories that reflect their own experiences. I hope it's something we can build together.

That's the future that I believe in.

While Blizzard's storytelling can feel pretty trope-y at times, I love the characters that he had a hand in making for Overwatch. Hopefully the game's lore is in good hands going forward.
 

RecRoulette

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
26,044
WHAT!? I didn't think he'd leave so close to 2's release.

Honestly I'm optimistic if new blood works on OW. I feel like Overwatch always failed to capitalize on the story they set up
 

Finaj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,358
I'm curious who will replace him. We still don't know what that former CD Projekt Red writer is working on.
 

jdmc13

Member
Mar 14, 2019
2,885
I don't want to disparage his work, but I found the writing for Overwatch to be kinda weak. Character work was fine, but this long with a strong central conflict is just kinda dumb.
 

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,287
Houston, TX
Damn, didn't expect him to leave, especially with Overwatch 2 still being worked on.
 
OP
OP
MadLaughter

MadLaughter

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,090
What was even written for Overwatch, calling it barebones would be generous.

It's a lot of tangential stuff. It might be like 40% writing and 60% voice acting, but the dozens and dozens of voice lines for every character really breathe life into them, and the conversations they can have pre-or-mid match were interesting and made people want more. There's multiple comics and short stories and all of the animated shorts, but really the way the dialogue is written helped bring the characters to life.
 

Deleted member 14377

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
13,520
People who say Overwatch didn't have a story are the same people who say Dark Souls doesn't have any. There are different ways to tell a story outside of holding your hand through cinematic cutscenes.
 

PMS341

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt-account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,634
People who say Overwatch didn't have a story are the same people who say Dark Souls doesn't have any. There are different ways to tell a story outside of holding your hand through cinematic cutscenes.

Right, but to be fair, Dark Souls at least included the storybuilding in-game. Most of Overwatch's lore comes from supplemental content.
 
OP
OP
MadLaughter

MadLaughter

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
13,090
Right, but to be fair, Dark Souls at least included the storybuilding in-game. Most of Overwatch's lore comes from supplemental content.

In a fast, 6v6 multiplayer shooter there isn't a lot of time to stop and read item descriptions or talk to NPCs.

The conversations characters have at the beginnings of matches are more than almost all MP games I've played have done.
 

MCD

Honest Work
Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,751
It's a common misconception that he worked on the lore at all!
 

PMS341

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt-account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,634
In a fast, 6v6 multiplayer shooter there isn't a lot of time to stop and read item descriptions or talk to NPCs.

The conversations characters have at the beginnings of matches are more than almost all MP games I've played have done.

I agree, but that doesn't mean story could not have been provided via other means, even in-game codexes at the bare minimum, as opposed to made-for-socials CG trailers and comics. Dark Souls doesn't have this issue due to it's narrative abilities and options.
 

Deleted member 49438

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 7, 2018
1,473
Still waiting on Zenyatta lore. RIP. Best of luck to him in his future endeavors. Sadly Blizz never took Overwatch story stuff seriously, despite having a reasonably interesting setting.
 

Kuga

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,263
Wish him the best.

You mean besides the animations, backstory, character backgrounds, short stories, and comics?

Nothing really.
The occasional tidbit of information once or twice a year is inadequate.

When you build a world with many unique characters, people expect a lot from that. At least to me Overwatch's writing is barebones. The story chronologically is basically where it started at launch years ago, many characters aren't fleshed out at all, we know little about the the organizations that play a role in the story (the revived Overwatch, Talon, Helix Security, Vishkar Corporation, etc.).
 

Waffle

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,821
I see the usual people coming in to make the drive by posts.. Overwatch told its stories through the character interactions before the matches because it's a PVP multiplayer shooter and it did it well enough to flesh out its characters. I think the characters' personalities are as distinctive and loved because of the writing. OW2 looks to be adding more of a story focus too.

That's a long time at one company. I wish him well on his new job.
 

Calibro

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,822
Belarus
90f.png
 

¡ B 0 0 P !

Banned
Apr 4, 2019
2,915
Greater Toronto Area
For all you people joking about the lack of lore, you do know that will be addressed in the Overwatch 2 update with the PVE campaign missions?

Plus a OW animated TV show has been rumoured, for a while.
 

Deleted member 49438

User requested account closure
Banned
Nov 7, 2018
1,473
As much as fans love the lore, telling a story was never the point of this game.

Absolutely agree. Some of the character reveal trailers early on kind of strung us along there (looking at the Sombra one in particular), but ultimately like you said, it became obvious they had no serious intention to develop a narrative.
 

Veelk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,705
For all you people joking about the lack of lore, you do know that will be addressed in the Overwatch 2 update with the PVE campaign missions?

Plus a OW animated TV show has been rumoured, for a while.
I mean, maybe it will, but it's partially an issue of quality and partially an issue of progression and both are interlinked.

To get an idea of Blizzard's mindset, they knew they struck gold with the presentation of these characters, where they are appealing in their looks, their premise and backstory. But telling a story requires some kind of progression, conflict, deepening of their characterization, and Blizzard wants to avoid that because it might jeopardize the idea of who these characters are in the forefront, first impression aspect. This is why the book that would have detailed how Overwatch fell was cancelled, because it "revealed too much". It's not like they were saving it for some other big reveal, they just wanted it to remain an amorphous mystery because they wanted people speculating on it, perpetually.

And this is incredibly damaging because without new info, without the story progressing in any way, we just realize there is nothing there. There is no reason for why the Overwatch organization fell that Blizzard has devised (atleast since they abandoned it), it just did and they make characters allude vague stuff about it, but never actually say anything about it and it will always be that way.

The only arguable exception to this was the Blackwatch archives event, which told the story of the first step for OW falling, but it's a very uninteresting event. It was because Reaper "did what had to be done" and that just amounted to killing some guy that didn't have any importance prior or since to the storyline, and it's not even really new information since Reaper was characterized as the one who did the dirty work of OW since his introduction, so basically the only thing we really learned is who specifically was part of Blackwatch (Moira, Genji, McCree, Reaper) and that they killed a bad guy instead of bringing him in. No new insight into the characters, no real new ideas, nothing substantial. And that's the best one we got. The other archives missions were Tracer's first day, which details just that with no significant revelations and the other one is an OW mission where they capture Maximillian to interrogate him, but we don't see it and it just ends on another cliffhanger of some big event coming #Soon.

If you imagine a food with no nutritional properties, something you can eat but does not fill you in any way, that's what OW content has been.


Will that change for OW2? Maybe, but the problem is that the past four years have revealed that Blizzard's intentions with these is more manipulative than it is because they want to tell a good story. To keep us guessing "What are they going to do next? Whats that? Whose that?" but with no intention of ever actually answering those questions. That's what needs to change to get me excited about Blizzard's PvE missions - they need to want to actually tell a story and right now they don't.
 

¡ B 0 0 P !

Banned
Apr 4, 2019
2,915
Greater Toronto Area
Will that change for OW2? Maybe, but the problem is that the past four years have revealed that Blizzard's intentions with these is more manipulative than it is because they want to tell a good story. To keep us guessing "What are they going to do next? Whats that? Whose that?" but with no intention of ever actually answering those questions. That's what needs to change to get me excited about Blizzard's PvE missions - they need to want to actually tell a story and right now they don't.

OW 2 was made to address their past mistakes story wise. I'm sure they will move the lore along with OW 2.

Now how detailed or lengthy the OW 2 missions are is still up in the air.
 

Veelk

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,705
OW 2 was made to address their past mistakes story wise. I'm sure they will move the lore along with OW 2.

Now how detailed or lengthy the OW 2 missions are is still up in the air.
Your missing the point. OW 1's stories weren't bad because Michael Chu is a bad writer. Or, atleast that wasn't the only reason.

They were bad because they were not allowed to be good. Someone at blizzard decided everything about the world and it's characters needed to be kept in statis, never developed, never explored. They were treated less like people living in this sci-fi world and more like action figures, to be played with but never truly changed by their experienced, never truly explored. They did that because they estimated that they were more profitable like that.

There's no evidence, as of now, to suggest that has changed, so it doesn't matter how detailed or lengthy or even how good a writer they hire. They could hire George RR Martin to write a ASoIaF sized novel about OW, and it wouldn't matter if they intend to keep them in this character stasis.
 

antitrop

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,577
Even if it didn't always work and I didn't personally care about the story or character backgrounds at all, what was there was still way above and beyond for what Overwatch was, a competitive multiplayer shooter. It's hard to tell any kind of coherent story when the core gameplay is just rounds of glorified deathmatch, any bit of good character stuff always just felt like a bonus to me.
 
Oct 25, 2017
3,064
It's obvious that story just isn't a major priority for the game, sadly. But that is absolutely not solely on the shoulders of Chu. It'd be better to ask Kaplan why that is.
 

Vareon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,807
Best of luck to him. Overwatch character's popularity exceeded the popularity of the game itself, people are sharing fanarts and cosplays even though they don't play the game.
 

AlexFlame116

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 17, 2017
23,177
Utah
On the one hand, best of luck Mr. Chu and thank you so much for everything! And good luck with whatever you approach next!

On a personal selfish note: this sadly probably means that Gency is now going to be tossed away forever so that another can rise. :(
It's a common misconception that he worked on the lore at all!
Holy crap he does it one time for D.Va's story and people parrot it to no end.
 

Titik

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,490
Good luck to him.

I wish blizzard didn't retcon so many of them as they went along or give in to fan pressure. It felt like the whole thing was just being strung along that I don't even pay attention to the story anymore.
 

PlzUninstall

Member
Oct 30, 2017
563
These replies about the lack of work are bad. It's the same as lazy dev rhetoric. Come on guys, we're better than this.

Good luck to Michael. I loved his work on Overwatch but I imagine it was frustrating to not be able to extend his work into bigger stories. After sinking so much time into the game I genuinely cared more about the lore and the content around the game more than the game itself. Give the man a bigger budget and I'd love to see what else he does.
 

Lyre

Alt Account
Banned
Feb 12, 2020
2,996
London
Oh fuck that's sad news. Also the people in here are clueless, he would have been responsible for all cut-scenes, character dialogue, lore and for much of what composes Overwatch's impeccable atmosphere.
 

Dark Ninja

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,070
Played overwatch for over 1000 hours now. The best I can come up with from the story told in game is some robot race is mad at humans or was killed off I think. Also Junkrat is crazy and Dva loves video games. I still don't even understand what an Overwatch is/was.

probably not this persons fault none of it is told in the game not even the cinematics are watchable in game. They are just writing what they are told.
 
Last edited:

Symphony

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,361
Oh, you mean the guy they brought on board a couple of years in specifically to handle the story - yet the end result was that we had less cinematic shorts, less comics, less story based events and less overall plot exposition than before? For a period the only plot points being revealed were from his offhand replies to tweets.

Blizzard overall really, really dropped the ball on the way the handled the plot and characters, they had an explosive cast of characters people adored and were thirsty for more details on... and then nothing, they didn't capitalise on any of it.