Blizzard Still Has Another Major Multiplayer PC Game in the Works

Blizzard is apparently developing a never-seen-before game. While initial speculation leaned towards the project simply being Overwatch 2, recent developments have left fans wondering whether they may have been too hasty. The evidence is slowly mounting that Blizzard may be putting together a totally unseen before IP.

Things really kicked off when Dan John Cox, a Senior Artist at Blizzard Entertainment, put out an ad via Twitter in search of candidates to join their design team. The post advertises a myriad of different positions including Lead Character Artist, Lead/Senior VFX Artist, and a Senior Environment Artist, among others. In another response to his initial tweet, Cox also included a direct link to one of the positions on Blizzard's career and job openings hub in order to further encourage would-be candidates. The information found there reveals more about the project in question.

One of the openings found there is for a "Mid-Level or Associate Combat Designer," with "broad, extensive player experience with FPS and action games, both single-player and online." It's worth noting that the position calls specifically for someone with single-player experience. While there is no single-player mode in the original Overwatch, this posting could once again be related to Overwatch 2 which Blizzard hinted may contain solo gameplay during Blizzcon 2021.

But that may not close the case entirely. Within the description of the Senior 3D Environment Artist position, one of the tasks is for the artist to "develop a broad range of environments that include trees, architecture, foliage, and highly creative unique points of interest needed to define the visual direction of the game." It seems that Blizzard is still looking to define a visual style unique to this game. If this is the case, it may throw a wrench into the works. Fans would expect that the art style of Overwatch 2 has already largely been decided on.

To complicate matters further, observant fans will remember that an unannounced Blizzard project was hinted at years ago. At that time, four years ago, Blizzard was looking for a Lead Software Engineer "to work on an unannounced project that utilizes a robust first-person engine." With these details in mind, it seems possible that these projects are one and the same. With the fundamental framework laid, Blizzard may be moving on to the visual side of this potentially original IP all these years later. Still, fans are left searching for a definitive answer whether this is an entirely new IP or whether these clandestine postings are simply referring to Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2 was recently featured at BlizzCon 2021, where the developers offered some deeper insight into Hero Missions and showed off the New York and Rome maps. However, Blizzard has set a precedent that Overwatch at BlizzCon means a new hero reveal, and when that didn't happen, some fans were understandably disappointed. However, while no explicit character reveal happened at BlizzCon, it's still possible that the company left some clues pointing to new heroes.

In fact, some Overwatch 2 fans think that they've potentially spotted new hero Soundquake in the BlizzCon 2021 Behind the Scenes footage. For the uninitiated, Soundquake is a character that was first teased in the Overwatch cinematic trailer all the way back in 2014, but he hasn't actually been seen in-game or any other kind of Overwatch media.