Blizzcon 2017 rolled around, and Blizzard reminded us why they’re still the king of game cinematics with a new slew of short films, including another Pixar-level Overwatch cinematic (above) involving the character Reinhardt from Overwatch, as well as two other cinematics, for World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm:
Behind the Cinematic had an interview with Jeff CHamberlain, Blizzard’s cinematic director:
Bailey: What’s it been like to watch the team evolve over the years?
Jeff: It’s been really fascinating. When I started here I would say there were probably around one hundred people, for the company in total. And in the cinematics department, I was the eleventh person. It was interesting. It started out as a small group. We all went to lunch together. We were all really young at the time, so we all hung out. Even after work we’d all go out together. Over the years we’ve gotten bigger and bigger. Back then we all did everything; we were all generalists in the trade. We all did modeling, animating, rigging, effects, lighting—all that stuff. But as we got bigger and bigger, we realized, obviously, we can’t have a group of two hundred people that do everything. So, it split off into all the different groups that you would expect to see in a movie studio. We had a group of animators, a group of riggers, and all that stuff. So, it’s changed a lot in that way.So, in developing those groups you create these sub-cliques. I think our department’s about two hundred people right now. I think it might be a little bit over. And so with two hundred people, you can’t all go to lunch together. So, it’s a little different that way.
But the benefit of having that many people is that we can create way more content. Back when we did stuff with a group of twelve people, we’d spend years on one project. Whereas now we can crank out multiple projects in a year. So, there are pros and cons. I prefer both for different reasons.