Blizzard Entertainment introduced Doomfist to Overwatch today with a spectacular animated video. The fans who watched it and immediately wanted a full-length, anime-style Overwatch series aren’t alone. The team that produced the short, Shanghai-based company Wolf Smoke Studio, has been asking for an Overwatch anime since almost exactly one year ago.
Wolf Smoke Studio’s made a name for itself with shorts like “Kung Fu Cooking Girls” and a Chinese-themed series of Batman shorts for Cartoon Network. But the tiny Chinese animation group isn’t just talented; they’re also big fans of Overwatch.
On July 7, 2016, Wolf Smoke Studio posted a piece of fan art to its Tumblr page. “What if Overwatch comes into an anime?” the caption reads, with a stylish reimagining of Tracer just above it.
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The post went over well with fellow Tumblr-using Overwatch fans, racking up more than 2,000 likes and reblogs. It seems like a combo of the post’s popularity, Wolf Smoke’s good reputation and the studio’s major love for Overwatch caught Blizzard Entertainment’s eye, because now Wolf Smoke is making its imagination a reality.
Tracer plays a small role in the Doomfist origin video, calling back to Wolf Smoke’s days as mere Overwatch fan artists. The rest of the video is filled with Doomfist, Winston and other heroes, duking it out over the course of one stylish short. It’s by far the coolest teaser in the Overwatch short film canon, and fans hope that we’ll get more in the same vein sometime soon.
We’ve reached out to Wolf Smoke Studio to see if its relationship with Blizzard Entertainment stops here, or if we can hope to see more collaboration between the two in the future. We’ll update when we hear back.
