At BlizzCon 2017[1], popular hero shooter Overwatch[2] got a new character for you to play as - Moira[3] - as well as a new map called BlizzardWorld[4]. While updates like this are par for the course given Blizzard’s attention to Overwatch, it made us wonder what the technical ramifications of such moves are to a game that’s been receiving steady updates since its inception. Gadgets 360 spoke to Tim Ford, Lead Engineer of Overwatch at Blizzard to find out more.
“If there’s one thing that always scares me when it comes to new characters, [it] is teleportation," says Ford. "Moira doesn't exactly teleport. She turns invisible and then she moves. That's great. Sombra teleports. D.Va technically teleports because she summons a mech and gets in that. Tracer teleports. Those heroes give us the most grief [as they’re susceptible to glitches and exploits that break the game]. At launch Reaper gave us so much grief because he teleports. So my first instinct when it comes to new heroes is: ’Can she teleport? No? Cool. How many legs does she have?’"
"These are some of the concerns. Orisa for example is a quadruped [which is challenging] because we haven't done any animation systems for quadrupeds yet, so that's going to be a tech concern right there," Ford explains.
In terms of tech, Overwatch doesn’t use a third-party game engine like Unreal or Unity. Instead, it uses a set of custom tools developed at Blizzard[5]. Ford shed light on Overwatch’s engine.
“It's a proprietary custom engine, the game is in C++, our tools are C++ and C#," he says. "We have a very senior team who have been exposed to not only...