The massively successful Overwatch video game series and multimedia franchise recently premiered the first of three special anime episodes associated with the game’s universe, entitled GENESIS. The first part, Dawn, we released one week ago and has already accrued more than 640,000 views on YouTube. Now, the second episode, Innocence, has just debuted.
If you need to catch up, you can watch the first episode here. Then, check out the new episode, GENESIS – Part Two: Innocence, below.
The Overwatch franchise is set in a future dystopia on Earth in which artificial intelligence has been turned against humanity, leading to something called the Omnic Crisis. The U.S. launched a secret super-soldier program, somewhat similar to the whole Captain America mythos, to combat the sentient AI threat (which feels more and more relevant with each passing day).
This is hardly the only animated series or special related to the Overwatch franchise, which has produced a variety of shorts for the past decade, all interconnected with a kind of complicated continuity. The cinematic shorts have drawn incredible viewership over the years; fans may remember the grand success of the Genji-focused Dragons episode from May 16, 2016, which has seen more than 42 million viewers.
GENESIS in particular focuses on the Omnic robots themselves and their evolution from human-assisting robots in a veritable techno-utopia, to the deadly machines they’ve become in the game’s history. The three-episode anime series explores the robots, their rebellion, and the scientists who created and worked on them. To catch up on your Overwatch lore, Polygon has an excellent timeline of the games and their multimedia counterparts.
Video Game Adaptations Keep Coming
For a while there, it seemed like a barren path for any studio to create a cinematic adaptation of a popular video game franchise, for obvious reasons (games are generally active, films are generally passive). The gargantuan box office bombs that were Super Mario Bros. in 1993 and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001 seemed like a warning to any film studio — here’s what happens if you try.
Some did eventually become successful, such as the Resident Evil film franchise, but basically no video game adaptation received critical praise, and even if they were financially profitable, fans of the games were often divided on the films. This zeitgeist has begun to shift in recent years, thanks to both box office and critical successes. The Sonic the Hedgehog movies, Werewolves Within, and Pokémon Detective Pikachu have all done very well with critics, and Sonic and Pokémon Detective Pikachu made a lot of money. The recent animated version of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, while less critically adored, was also a huge box office success.
Maybe one day we’ll see a full Overwatch feature film. in the meantime, the snazzy anime series, GENESIS, is a fine substitute.
