Blizzard announces Overwatch Rush, a mobile spinoff of Overwatch

Blizzard Entertainment is working on a spinoff of Overwatch for mobile devices called Overwatch Rush, the company announced Tuesday. Overwatch Rush is described as “an entirely new game – not a port” that’s being developed internally at Blizzard by a team separate from Team 4, the group that works on Overwatch.

In other words, Blizzard wants to make sure you know that the “mobile-first experience” Overwatch Rush isn’t going to take resources away from its recently rebranded hero shooter. In an FAQ, Blizzard made it explicit that a “new, separate, dedicated team focused exclusively on” Overwatch Rush is developing it. The international team behind it boasts “extensive experience in mobile game development,” according to Blizzard.

Overwatch Rush is a top-down hero shooter featuring the heroes of Overwatch battling on familiar-looking maps. In a video released Tuesday featuring early gameplay of Overwatch Rush, we see two teams of four squaring off on a Control-style map, with powers and abilities that look modified from their counterparts in Overwatch. Characters are stylized in a more cartoonish way, likely in an attempt to make them more readable from the mobile game’s top-down view.

Blizzard says that Overwatch Rush is in the early stages of development and designed for “fast-paced, on-the-go play, with Hero-centric combat and playstyle customization that suits both team and solo players.” Controls are built for mobile devices — the game supports touchscreen, not controllers — and games are meant to be played in “bite-sized sessions.”

Overwatch Rush will be playable in select region testing soon, Blizzard says, as it fine-tunes gameplay, performance, and server stability — and monetization elements. The game will be free to play on Android and iOS devices.

Blizzard has dabbled in mobile game development over the past decade, including with Diablo Immortal and Warcraft Rumble.

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