Blizzcon 2017 has been a gold mine for Overwatch information. We got our first glance of a new hero and a new map alongside some fascinating insights about the early days of the game in the Overwatch Archive panel. One user has uploaded part of that panel to YouTube, and the footage shows the very first play test of the game, featuring a Tracer that couldn’t even hold guns yet—she had to shoot lasers out of her eyes. Watch it above.
The quick-talking former pilot was the first hero that the team fleshed out, which meant that most of the early footage shows intense 12-player Tracer-only brawls. Temple of Anubis was the first map that the developer tested, and it’s cool to watch it slowly take shape (skip to 2:45, and pause for the hilarious early model of a health pack at 3:25).
Reaper also featured early because the team used him as a scale marker to make sure the environments were the right size and shape. His guns, save for the fact that there’s no colour on them, looked pretty impressive from the start, although his first Death Blossom animation was…simplistic. It’s more ballerina than ball of death—3:38 for that.
You can also spy some early hero abilities that didn’t made it to the final game. Reinhardt could originally throw his hammer, Torbjörn could place a ceiling trap that hooked enemies in place, and Mercy’s ultimate locked her healing beam onto multiple targets. Torbjörn’s turrets were originally built in two stages, too: he placed a base first and then stood next to it while hammering out the rest.
Can you spot anything you wish Blizzard had stuck with?