Overwatch includes pieces of Blizzard's canceled MMO Titan

Elements of Blizzard Entertainment's just-announced shooter, Overwatch, were once part of the canceled massively multiplayer online game Titan, Senior Vice President of story and franchise development Chris Metzen revealed today during a BlizzCon panel.

In response to a question about any similarities between the two games, Metzen said that "there are elements to Overwatch" that have "continuity" with Titan, including some maps. Even though some of Overwatch may have originated in Titan, he stressed that the games aren't the same.

"I would say they're pretty different, but there are some components," Metzen said.

Blizzard revealed to Polygon in September that it had canceled Titan after at least seven years of development on the next-gen MMO — a game that it never officially announced.

"We didn't find the fun," Blizzard co-founder and CEO Mike Morhaime told Polygon. "We didn't find the passion. We talked about how we put it through a reevaluation period, and actually, what we reevaluated is whether that's the game we really wanted to be making. The answer is no."

Titan's demise was the latest for a company with a history of canceling games it deemed unworthy.

Check out our coverage of Overwatch to learn more about the team-based shooter, including a cinematic trailer that calls to mind a Pixar short. For more on what the developer announced at BLizzCon 2014, check out Polygon's StoryStream.