Jeff Kaplan impressed with custom WoW-style Overwatch loading screen
Blizzard EntertainmentAn Overwatch fan’s custom World of Warcraft-inspired Overwatch loading screen was so good, even Game Director Jeff Kaplan had to chime in with some kind words.
Artist MethixYo took the standard World of Warcraft screen and modified it with Overwatch heroes, tips, and logos, producing something that turned out to be surprisingly incredible.
Even the background of the screen, which normally features a map of a location in-game was replaced with Eichenwalde – one of the most popular hybrid maps in the FPS title.
There’s some nice synergy in the heroes used too with the upper portion consisting of supports Baptiste and Ana, the middle being DPS characters Genji and Doomfist, and finally big tanks at the bottom in the form of Reinhardt and Orisa.
Another neat touch was how the Overwatch logo’s colors were changed to blue and yellow which are synonymous with WoW branding and capture the theme the artist was going for.
Finally, a tip on the bottom of the screen amusingly reads: “You can still be a bad teammate with gold medals!”
This is a reference to Overwatch’s medal system and how often times players will cry “I have gold medals” when their team isn’t performing well in an attempt to say they’re not the reason they’re losing.
All in all, the art is pretty impressive, to the point that Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan commented on it with some positive words: “So cool to see this!”
Blizzard EntertainmentIt’s worth mentioning that Jeff did actually work on World of Warcraft for over six years at Blizzard before moving onto Project Titan, which then became Overwatch.
Seeing as how some of the game’s skins pay homage to Warcraft, one has to wonder if this special loading screen or some variant of it could ever make its way to the actual game in a future update, even if it is just a nice Easter egg for fans of both games.