There’s been plenty for Overwatch fans from BlizzCon 2017. A new Reinhardt animated film, a new hero, also the new Blizzard World map revealed for Overwatch. And when it’s released early in 2018, it’ll be accompanied by some special themed skins which look awesome.

Back to Blizzard World, and as a theme park based on the company behind Overwatch, Diablo, Starcraft, Hearthstone and Warcraft, amongst others, there are plenty of inside jokes, Easter Eggs and more.

So there’s a large Siege Tank and glowing Protoss Pylon which you’ll spot pretty quickly. Players spawn inside either a Hearthstone-themed tavern or a Heroes Arcade which features Murloc Skee-Ball lanes and Azmodunk basketball machines, with the highscores set by Solder: 76, D.Va and Sombra (who appears to have hacked the scores to register 9,999).

The rides include Flight to Duskwood, which you can visit. And more are visible on the in-game park map including the Hellscream roller coast, Spawning Pools water park and more. And even the snak bars are themes as Snaxxramas and Pylon Terrace with Death Wings, Protoss Nexus waffles in Zerg Creep syrup and Terran Marine-shaped cups.

And obviously there’s plenty of fun with the park announcements. Such as Diablo’s Deckard Cain informing Torbjorn he’s not tall enough to ride the attractions, or the Terran Adjutant offering a Protoss Carrier stroller for kids.

The map is losely themed into 4 sections, for Diablo, StarCraft, Hearthstone and Warcraft. But there are references to others, including The Lost Vikings. We’re not sure Rock ‘n’ Roll Racing will appear, sadly.

New Blizzard World Skins

But there’s more. Specifically some rather nice new skins themed on Blizzard games to accompany the release of the park. The 6 new blizzard skins will be available Classic Loot Boxes, along with two based on recent character animated films (Young Reinhardt and Mei from Ecopoint: Antartica).

And it looks like a pretty ‘a-mei-zing’ selection of skins, with not a duff one in the selection. The Blizzard themed cosmetics are:

• Immortal Orisa (Starcraft)
• Magni Bronzebeard Torbjorn (Warcraft)
• Nova Widowmaker (Starcraft)
• Blackhand Doomfist (Warcraft)
• Barbarian Zarya (Diablo)
• Butcher Roadhog (Diablo)

It’s nice to see a cool skin for Roadhog, who has been a bit under-supplied. I’ve never really liked his skins as much as pretty much any of the other characters, aside from Junkenstein’s Monster. But the new Butcher looks cool and mean, which is what you’d expect.

Zarya, Torbjorn and Widowmaker look cool – although you’ll have to be careful not to run at the blonde Widowmaker for healing due to a slight similarity with Mercy. But the best news is that Orisa and Doomfist are getting some skins which look great. We can probably stop with any Swedish/Viking related skins for Torbjorn for now (and maybe forever), but the Blizzard themed additions should be really popular.

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Successful games can often inspire similar titles. But some are more blatant than others. Which is why it’s no surprise Blizzard goes after Chinese Overwatch clones when they’re particularly shameless. In this case, it’s mobile game Heroes of Warfare by developers 4399.

Blizzard and Chinese partners NetEase are suing 4399 for intellectual property infringement, which means ceasing production, monetary compensation and removing Heroes of Warfare from the iOS and Android app stores.

How much of a copy is Heroes of Warfare? Well, it appears to have similar heroes in design and play style. The user interface looks very similar. And the maps look pretty much identical. It’s close enough that you could believe it was a mobile port. As this Youtube video of the game shows.

Anyone instantly think of Ilios?

This isn’t the first mobile game to be almost identical to Overwatch. There are plenty of other titles which have tried the same trick, such as Hero Mission. Which adapted the main characters slightly, but then went on to infringe a variety of other games and films with unlockable skins. For instance, it changed Winston into a Panda, and then added a Kung Fu Panda skin.

Other famous first person shooters have also been imitated, from Team Fortress 2 to a Call of Duty inspired game released by the Chinese military. What’s possibly more interesting is the fact software publishers might increasingly be playing whack-a-mole to try to legally remove the most blatant and successful examples. It’ll be interesting to see whether Blizzard succeeds.

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