Overwatch Out In May, If Leaks Are To Be Believed

A somewhat rare dabbler as I am in the arena of getting repeatedly murderised by strangers, I was under the errant impression that everyone except me was already playing Overwatch [official site], Blizzard's first foray into online manshoots. Actually it doesn't morph into an any'n'everyone open beta until May 3, and won't get a full release until May 24. At least, that's what a briefly-appearing advert on IGN claims. The ad was swiftly scorched from the site, but not before The Internet did its thing.

A Spring release has seemed likely for a while, Blizzard having bandied that around as a planned release date since last year and confirming to Eurogamer that this was still their intention just last month. It's actually fairly rare that Blizz will be drawn on a release date that far ahead of time, which suggests they've tackled Overwatch's development with military precision - if these May dates are to be believed.

'Twas Reddit user Deadpoolthegreat who was mindful enough to grab a screenshot of the ads when they so briefly cropped up on IGN. While there isn't any official confirmation as yet, it's not screaming hoax at me: it's not like this is a scorching zinger of a scoop given how long Overwatch has been a fairly known quantity for.

Anyway: May 3 beta, May 24 full release, if these are on the money. I am looking forwards to sticking my head above Overwatch's parapet, but I'm pretty sure I'll have a better time when it's open to the world rather than the invariably super-committed'n'skilled few in the closed beta. Though I do remain grumpy that a term traditionally associated with turn-based strategy has been co-opted for bouncy twitchy real-time murderfun.