New Overwatch short for the robotic hero Bastion.
Yet another of Blizzard’s beautifully animated Overwatch shorts has debuted this week, this time starring everyone’s favorite unstoppable killing machine: Bastion. After he awakens from a long deactivated slumber, he advances towards his last known target but gets sidetracked along the way by the wonders of nature and his infamous green bird friend, Ganymede.

Besides the beautiful scenery and a heart-melting story, the short also drops a few tidbits of the game’s drip fed lore. For the first time, we get to see the scale of a battle during the Omnic Crisis and get a brief glimpse of Eichenwalde, the game’s first new map, which features an abandoned German castle-town.

The release of the short also coincides with the end of Overwatch’s first competitive season. Season Two is expected to release next month, but may be delayed as Blizzard wishes to address many concerns fans have regarding competitive matchmaking and ranking. They specifically wish to address how having a teammate leave during a match leaves players at a major disadvantage and are considering changing one’s ranking from being based on games won to being based on in-game performance instead.
Facebook teams up with Unity to make a Steam-like gaming platform.
Facebook is no stranger to the gaming market with popular games like Farmville, Words With Friends and a slew of other browser-based games you could enjoy on a lunch break easily accessible through Facebook’s website. On August 18, Facebook announced it would be teaming up with Unity, a company that provides game engine technology and assets to game developers, to create a new Steam-esque games distribution platform for PC to cater to its 650-million users who regularly play games via their Facebook profile.
Few details about the platform have been revealed so far, but Facebook has claimed its goal will be to streamline the publishing process and allow game developers to publish and profit from their games with ease. Currently, only a select group of developers have been invited to participate in the alpha stages of the platform, but Facebook has made applications available for anyone who wants to get involved later down the line in the development process.
Facebook also states that they distributed more than $2.5 billion to its game developer partners in 2015 alone, which shows just how profitable a move like this might be for the social media giant.
Twitch.tv acquires popular game addon provider Curse.net.
The popular video game streaming site Twitch.tv has recently acquired Curse Incorporated, a company devoted to enhancing PC gaming by providing PC gaming services like secure voice chat servers and an add-on download manager for popular games like League of Legends or World of Warcraft.
Twitch.tv blog writer Evan Freitas wrote that Twitch has admired the services Curse has provided for years and is looking forward to the things the two companies will be able to achieve together. Moving forward, the two companies hope to provide a wide variety of services to gamers and to improve the PC gaming experience overall.