Superb new Overwatch animated short tells a tale of two ninjas

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I mentioned a few days ago that Blizzard would be releasing a new Overwatch animated short called Dragons today. It bears a reminder now, though, because it's out, and it's really good.

Dragons tells the story of the sons of the Shimada clan, Hanzo and Genji, who had something of a philosophical falling out and dealt with it in the only way that ninjas know: murder! Except it turns out that it was really more of an attempted murder, followed by a whopper of a medical misdiagnosis, years of self-recrimination and regret, a spot of Robocopping, and "Honor—Do You Have It?"

I have to admit to being somewhat mystified by the amount of effort Blizzard puts into creating the narrative backcloth for what is, unless I'm missing something, a fairly straightforward class-based online shooter. It's great that it does, and obviously serves a purpose—if Blizzard puts this much effort into extraneous origin stories, imagine how much it must be investing into the game itself—but come on, triple-A RPGs don't usually get this much pre-release lore.

As good as it is, it is perhaps not the most original tale of brotherly redemption ever told. YouTuber Krunkidile predicted the plot in a recent stream, and then animated and posted his version several hours before the real trailer went up. The result speaks for itself.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.