In front of over 25,000 attendees at BlizzCon, along with millions of gamers watching the event online, Blizzard announced Overwatch, a first-person shooter that is set in an entirely new Blizzard game universe.
The game takes place in futuristic Earth, where soldiers, adventurers, scientists and oddities joined forces to form an international task force known as Overwatch that looked to restore peace to a world torn by war.
Overwatch disbanded after its influence waned over the course of many years. Gamers will be picking up the game as the heroes that the world still needs.
From the makers of World of Warcraft, Overwatch comes as the first new franchise by Blizzard in 17 years.
According to Blizzard, Overwatch was developed to be different from all the other games that the company has created. This is aided by the fact that Overwatch is Blizzar'ds first entry into the first-person shooter genre.
"What we like to do is look at genres we love and revere and see what we can bring to them," said Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan at BlizzCon.
Blizzard said that Overwatch will offer features that have never been seen in other games in the genre, which would be crucial. Since first-person shooters are among the most profitable games in the industry, the genre is also one of the most crowded.
Examples of other first-person shooters include Electronic Arts' Battlefield, Activision's Call of Duty, Microsoft's Halo and Ubisoft's Far Cry.
Destiny by Bungie is the latest successful game in the genre, offering gamers a massive online world much like the one that World of Warcraft offers.
Blizzard is now taking its experience in creating the World of Warcraft universe into the development of Overwatch, looking to achieve the same success the company had with World of Warcraft.
"Our goal with Overwatch is to create an awesome [shooter] experience that's more accessible to a much wider audience while delivering the action and depth that shooter fans love," said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard.
The game will be played by teams of six players each, following the trend in the industry where games are played in online matches between small teams, such as League of Legends and Battlefield.
Overwatch was fully playable at BlizzCon in 600 PCs, allowing players to choose from a roster of 12 heroes that include Reinhardt, an armor-clad German solider that can charge over great distances; Tracer, a British test pilot that can do acrobatic assaults; Symmetra, an Indian architect that can manipulate energy and light; and Hanzo, a Japanese mercenary with a bow.
Gamers can now sign up for the beta version of Overwatch through the game's website.
