During Blizzard’s Gamescom event, the Overwatch team unveiled the latest CG short detailing the origins of one of the game’s heroes. This particular animation focuses on Mei, the Chinese weather scientist who awakes from a cryogenic slumber after nine years with the rest of her team dead.
The animation, titled Rise and Shine, shows Mei recording a video log before entering cryosleep. She wakes up, quickly discovering that her entire team has died due to malfunctions in the machines, and during the nine years she’s been out, Overwatch has disbanded.
The rest of the short shows Mei creating her ice gun and using it to solve problems. The Overwatch shorts usually provide context to events in the lore, origins of character traits and abilities, or otherwise introduce the heroes’ personalities so players can appreciate them more.
The short also functions as a sort of introduction to the map Ecopoint: Antarctica, the first map meant for Arena modes. In canon, multiple Ecopoints were positioned around the world to study the climate, but Antarctica’s was hit by a powerful blizzard and the team working there had to enter cryostasis to stay alive after their supplies ran out. These events lead to Rise and Shine.
Blizzard has been releasing quite a few shorts recently, what with the trailer for Junkertown released earlier this week, and the Hearthstone Hearth and Home short shown just before Rise and Shine. Many fans have been asking for an Overwatch animated series or movie in the future, and hopefully Blizzard listens. I personally can remember how long people were begging Valve for a Team Fortress 2 movie with no results, so maybe Blizzard can make do on that promise and flesh out their lore in a fun way. There will be, at least, more CG shorts about Overwatch hero origins in the future.