Overwatch's Former Lead Writer Working On A Competitor From 2K Games
Former lead writer of Overwatch Michael Chu's first major role at the newly formed 31st Union Studios, a division of 2K Games, is likely as a writer for an upcoming multiplayer title, according to a slew of job listings the fledgling studio recently put up. A Twitter sleuth has compiled a list of the aforementioned listings, and it's an easy conclusion to draw that Chu will be spearheading what 31st refers to as a "multiplayer character-action game," something that echoes Chu's original brainchild.
Chu planted his roots as one of the key figures over at Blizzard and launched a highly productive 20-year tenure that included Overwatch, which he oversaw as the lead writer, and its supplementary media, including comics, short videos, and events. His primary focus, given his body of work, was expanding on the game's characters as individuals, and he spearheaded a number of decisions and revelations about those characters, particularly their sexualities. Chu has often vocally reaffirmed his desire to create diverse, inclusive characters, which was reflected in Overwatch's vast spectrum of characters and their unique personal stories, although it has been argued that there are plenty of instances where Overwatch fell short of that particular vision.
After twenty years, however, Chu departed from Blizzard to pursue other ventures, driven, by his own admission, to continue his goal of fostering more inclusiveness and diversity in the gaming industry and creating more characters to reflect what he has learned (and mistakes he's admitted to making) along the way. He was hired on at 31st Union as Narrative Director to bring what he had learned from his experiences and mistakes at Blizzard to the fledgling studio, although exactly how he was going to do that remained a mystery in the year since his hiring. But the mystery may be unravelling, as Twitter user MauroNL discovered and posted 31st Union's sudden influx of job openings, which was then reported over at IGN, all pertaining to an upcoming project that promises to be story-driven, with diverse characters, implementing online multiplayer action.
So from what can be gleaned out of the limited information presented thus far, the project in question seems to be a potential competitor to Overwatch, or, considering the timeline, more likely Overwatch 2, but that's not much more than speculation at this point. 31st Union had promised early last year to reveal more details about its first big project even before Chu was brought on, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic more than likely threw a wrench in the works. Chu's addition to the team, and the new job openings, may be the first real sign that that wrench has been removed, and that progress is now being made in earnest.
Regardless, it'll still be some time before any concrete information about 31st Union's first big project comes out, so speculation is the only thing left to work with. But if anyone's looking for a job in game development, there are a few openings available over at 31st, and Overwatch fans in particular just might be especially welcome.
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