Watching Out for the Overwatch Beta

If you haven’t heard about Overwatch, that’s okay. It’s only Blizzard’s seemingly-revolutionary game, and registrations for Beta have already begun. The announcement was made earlier today, including a preview of two new characters: McCree the Bounty Hunter, and Zarya the Soldier.

The announcement for the Beta in the Fall was made at Blizzard’s panel at the Penny Arcade East Expo, and included trailers showing a new Payload map, aside from Zarya and McCree.

An interesting note is that Zarya’s character model has earned plenty of approval from fans and critics, and shows that Blizzard is taking steps in the right direction when it comes to adding diversity to its pool of characters, and going beyond the a-typical slinky, buxom, femme-fatale style of female characters. Zarya (Full Name: Aleksandra Zaryanova) is a Tank, and she definitely looks like a soldier, complete with a handheld particle cannon, as seen below.

McCree (First Name: Jesse), on the other hand, is a futuristic take on the gunslinger of the old west. We’re talking Clint Eastwood in “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”, the trusty six-shooter at his side – the Peacekeeper –lets him roll and reload at the same time, and here’s how he rolls around.

The Overwatch team also introduced a new Watchpoint: Gibraltar at the panel. Check out the trailer below for a quick look at it.

You can sign up for the Overwatch Beta over here with your Battle.Net account.