by lover’s watchThe surveillance 2 Dating sim, debuted just before Valentine’s Day. Basically, Blizzard is gifted surveillance 2 Fans with the option to date Mercy and Genji through their browser. And we all appreciated the loving gesture, which feels like a surprising direction for Blizzard to take on the franchise. How did lover’s watch come? Could we see more romantic antics in the future? According to some of its developers, they really hope so.
lover’s watch The player ends up with Mercy and Genji in Laff Attic, a tragically unfunny comedy club. Cupid, who is definitely not Hanzo Shimada, will help you win the heart of the person you are trying to appeal to. It’s a game that cheekily plays with the lore behind the characters, but also fully acknowledges that it’s not canon, and flanders the characters’ personalities for fun.
surveillance 2 now has over 35 characters, but lover’s watch only has three (counting the secret ending) romance options. Other cameos include Ana and Zenyatta, both of whom make very brief appearances during your dates but don’t have routes of their own. It only takes about an hour to play through all the paths and unlock the secret ending. Mercy and Genji are certainly popular, but such a lean experience leaves us all wanting more.
“The fact that you can’t date Winston shows the stark disconnect between Blizzard and its audience,” a Winston fan tweeted. “My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.”
The passion of the fans is not lost on the narrative design team. Narrative designer Kyungseo Min called it a “harrowing day” when they only had to choose two characters. All heroes were in the running as potential dating sim candidates, including newer options like Junker Queen. Ultimately, the team chose Mercy and Genji for two main reasons:
Mercy has been a master of barbiecore for years.
blizzard
“They are longtime heroes in our roster,” says Min The opposite. “There’s a wealth of lore and a wealth of community jokes and memes, so we really wanted to leverage that for Loverwatch.”
In the game’s lore, Genji almost lost his life in a confrontation with his brother Hanzo. The Overwatch organization rebuilt Genji as a cyborg and hired him as an agent in the covert task force called the Blackwatch. But it was dr. Angela “Mercy” Ziegler, who used nanobiotechnology to save his life and nurse him back to health. Between her personal history and tidbits hinted at through in-game dialogue, there’s more than enough fodder for “Gency” to be one of the most popular over watch Ships. Therefore, it is only natural that they are the first two lovers lover’s watch.
“Second, they’re very different personalities, and we’re really trying to emphasize that,” says Min. “So we wanted to give players a variety of experiences.”
Min wrote the Mercy path and her colleague, Senior Narrative Designer Miranda Moyer, wrote the Genji path. Each route pokes fun at each of the characters with the community jokes Min mentioned, like the option to go to Genji and ask, “Do you need healing?” The team also deliberately avoided over-sexualizing the dialogue in order to do so those not looking for a “hot” experience can enjoy the game as much as everyone else.
The Blackwatch Genji skin shows us what he was like just after his transformation into a cyborg.
blizzard
To the question whether lover’s watch to expand into a larger project, Overwatch brand manager Beth Bryson confirmed it’s possible, but “no promises.”
“The hope is that player response is big enough that we can explore other avenues,” says Bryson. “I think there’s a very big appetite for it in the team, but no promises.”
So if Overwatch fans want to see more of their favorite characters in an official dating sim, the best thing they can do is play and talk about it lover’s watch as much as possible.
“We certainly make a stronger case if players jump in and enjoy it,” says Bryson.
Moyer reiterates that choosing just two characters was a difficult task, but added, “There’s absolutely a lot of enthusiasm behind this project and we have a lot of ideas for the rest of the cast.”
But who would be the most likely heroes to be featured next?
