We were approached by Blizzard to provide an immersive experience for their blockbuster AAA game Overwatch as a Thank You to their fans. It was to be a multi-stop tour with 8 locations at various popular video game conventions across the country culminating at their own yearly Blizzcon Convention. It was dubbed “The Overwatch Payload Tour.”
Our design team came up with the idea of a 360 degree rotating stage with a greenscreen backdrop and images would be dropped into a map from the game and delivered as a 4k social network sharable video.
Studio-built props were available for the fans to pose with during their turn on the stage and were stored on a custom weapons display.
Concept Art
Actual Build
We also hired professional cosplayers to be at the event and take photos with fans around the convention
and the fan cosplayers were a massive community themselves, organizing group meet-ups and photo ops on the stage and around the booth itself which had also been designed to be a perfect photo background.
“One of the cool things about it is that the entire thing is unpredictable as to how people will pose and react with real weapon designs from the game in their hands. But it also sets up for some nice miracle moments, like the one below that I was actually present for, as this guy proposed to his girlfriend dressed as Mei. It was one of those cool moments that had the entire hall in cheers and a few tears as she said yes, I felt lucky to witness it while I was visiting with the team.” -Gavin Sheehan, Bleeding Cool.com
Fans were encouraged to follow the tour across the country as each stop had a different event-specific collectible pin that they only received after “riding the Payload” and each day of the tour had a different virtual map background of the game.
Blizzcon 2018
Anime Expo 2018 – Los Angeles Convention Center
E3 2018 – Los Angeles Convention Center
DragonCon 2018
Blizzcon 2019 – the tour returned for one final return stop with sponsorship by Facebook Gaming.