Full lineup of LEGO Blizzard Overwatch sets revealed, available in January [News]

Target has today revealed all six of the LEGO sets from the upcoming LEGO Overwatch line, based on the hit team-based video game from Blizzard. This follows the early release of the small-scale mecha 75987 Omnic Bastion from Blizzard’s online store. The full-size sets include minifigures of iconic characters such as Tracer, D.Va, and more.

We’ll bring you an update when we have more information, though we can confirm January 1st availability for these sets. EDIT: The sets are now available for pre-order, shipping January 1, 2019.

75970 Tracer vs. Widowmaker | 129 pieces | Tracer & Widowmaker minifigs | Pre-order for $14.99

75970 features attack hero Tracer and defense/sniper hero Widowmaker with the payload escorted on the map Watchpoint: Gibraltar.

75971 Hanzo vs. Genji | 197 pieces | Hanzo & Genji minifigs | Pre-order for $19.99

75971 is set at the final capture point of Hanamura and features defense/sniper hero Hanzo with his bow, attack hero Genji with his Dragon Blade and shuriken, and Hanamura security guard.

75972 Dorado Showdown | 419 pieces | McCree, Reaper, & Soldier: 76 minifigs | Pre-order for $29.99

75972 shows a Dorado home and payload, and features the attack heroes McCree with his trusty Peacekeeper revolver, Reaper with dual Hellfire Shotguns, and Soldier: 76 with Pulse Rifle.

75973 D.Va & Reinhardt | 455 pieces | D.Va & Reinhardt minifigs | Pre-order for $39.99

75973 features two tank heroes: pro gamer D.Va and her MEKA, and the massively armed and armored Reinhardt.

75974 Bastion | 602 pieces | (No minifigs) | Pre-order for $49.99

75974 features a scaled-up model of defensive hero Bastion in his traditional color scheme, as opposed to the Omnic colors in 75897 Omnic Bastion (which you can read our review here).

75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar | 730 pieces | Winston, Mercy, Pharah, & Reaper minifigs | Pre-order for $89.99

75975 features the shuttle at the end of the map Watchpoint: Gibraltar and features the tank scientist gorilla Winston, angelic support healer Mercy, armored attack hero Pharah, and dual shotgun wielding Reaper.

19 comments on “Full lineup of LEGO Blizzard Overwatch sets revealed, available in January [News]

  1. Purple Dave

    I’m just here to check for any new elements. Ooh, I see a new gun base! And a shiny katana (probably not that shiny in real life, but a guy can hope). The new white hair is also pretty cool. Hanzo and Genji both appear to have some sort of new ribbon streaming off of their heads, like the ends of a tied bandana.

  2. Klinton

    Ah, see, THIS is more like it! These sets are all instant buys for me, whereas the preview set was an easy pass. I love them all!

  3. BLOCKER

    Why oh why did they choose to put Reaper in 2 of 6 sets !! There are so many other heroes waiting to be made ! And come on, where does this Hanamura Security Guard come from ? (ok from the video but not from the game) But they know I’m weak and I’m gonna buy them all. As I buy loot boxes on every event… And to be honest that D.Va is just awesome. ^^

  4. Alex

    Why the obviously computer generated pictures? They look fake, like some clone brand. Use real Lego!

  5. R

    Perhaps this is a way more popular game than I realize, but I can’t quite wrap my head around why Lego latched onto a video game to produce a line of sets. These are all an easy pass as there are no new elements or colors and I really have no interest in the game whatsoever. Sorry Lego, no investment potential here.

  6. Edwinder

    @R, you’re right – it is indeed a popular game. A VERY, VERY, VERY popular game. It generated 1 billion in revenue in its first year alone, and considered to be in the list of the greatest games of all time.*

    It’s just like any given particular theme, say… Ghostbusters or Ninjago (just picking random stuff here). If you were never exposed to it, no heartstings tied to it, it would seem like nothing.

  7. Guido

    I think the rocket does have new parts – I haven’t seen those white slopes on the sides before that both slop inwards and downwards

  8. Purple Dave

    @Alex:
    They’ve been using CGI for box art for years now. I have no idea when it even started, but at some point people started noticing that some of the poses were a little suspicious. Assume these are going to go through more steps to make the “fake” go away.

    @Guido:
    You mean the compound angle wedges running down the middle where it tapers? Yeah, I don’t remember seeing those before either.

  9. aanchir

    @Paul Couzens: I suspect they may be saving the characters introduced to the game later for later waves and first focusing on the characters the game launched with.

    @R: I don’t see what’s so strange or worrisome about them making a theme of a video game, particularly one that launches with a mere six sets. After all, they made Minecraft sets, which plenty of AFOLs thought were stupid or pointless or redundant, and insisted nobody would buy. Why buy Minecraft sets when you can build whatever you like in Minecraft for free? As it turned out, though, they were not only extremely popular but their popularity proved to be fairly long-lasting.

    What’s more, if you don’t see new elements here then I don’t think you’re paying enough attention. Besides the various new minifigure hair/headgear molds, Winston’s arms, etc, there are plenty of yummy recolors and some entirely new wedge slope molds (on the sides of the big shuttle).

  10. aanchir

    @Purple Dave: They use CGI for certain sets, but many others (especially larger sets) still use photos. The quality in most cases has improved since, say, the 2007 Aqua Raiders sets, but you can still tell the difference especially when the bricks look “too perfect” in high resolution (e.g. no molding marks, LEGO word mark on all studs is equally legible, reflections on shinier elements are too sharply defined, 1×1 plates/tiles are perfectly aligned, stickers applied perfectly smooth and straight, no dust spots, etc.

    Just as an example, http://cache.lego.com/r/dynamic/is/image/LEGO/70656_alt1?op_sharpen=0&resmode=sharp4&wid=4000&fit=constrain,1&fmt=png-alpha can seem like CGI at a distance because of that studio-style lighting, but it is an actual photo. Some parts have slight seams/flash molding (even a little dust on the dart), some of the LEGO word marks on the studs of the plates appear to be pressed a little deeper than others, some of the corners of the stickers are a little crinkly, part reflections are fuzzy, some elements have conspicuous, slightly raised light spots at the injection point, the softness vs. hardness of parts can be differentiated, etc.

    Of course, a complicating factor is that a lot of box art is heavily composited from one or more images plus CGI backdrops and graphical effects. Plus, a big part of the editing process is trying to hide as many imperfections (dust spots, etc) as possible. But in many cases, like this, it’s still easy enough to tell, even when the lighting or textures are more realistic.

  11. Purple Dave

    On the Hanzo/Genji box back, you get a clear view of some sconces on either side of the sword stand. The bottom piece is the 1×1 tile w/ nipple. The top piece is an upside-down 1×1 round plate. In between is another upside-down piece that looks like a fat fez. Is that new, or is it the stupid Beach Ball’s evil cousin’s head?

    @aanchir:

    I didn’t really investigate the claim much after it was made. All I knew was someone pointed out some semi-impossible poses and made a compelling argument that CGI was the name of the game. At the time it made sense, so I rolled with it. If they’re doing a mix now, I wonder how they choose which set gets what treatment.

    However, I’m not sure I agree with you on that image. I don’t see any dust on the dart, but I do see what appears to be a texture on the black rubber section, and motion blur across the entire bottom. I also see a 1×1 round plate behind the round yellow fan cowling with the danger stripes. That round plate has a nice, crisp logo. It _should_ have a mold pip right smack in the center, as the last time I can recall that not being the case was back when they molded two on a sprue and the pip was on the side of the flange (but that color didn’t exist back then). I do see ejector pin marks on the ribbed hose on the right leg (left in the image), and that definitely makes it look like a photo. The stickers definitely feel like a photo. The “G ARMY” sticker up top is off-center to the bottom of the 4×4 hood, the “0” on the gills looks cockeyed, and the “1” on the gills looks like the lower right corner is damaged, none of which would make sense in CGI box art. But then look at the hot dog cart. That black tassel is exactly the sort of impossible pose that made someone question if the box art was CGI. I mean, sure, if you _really_ wanted to pull that off, you could attach it to a post (and maybe angle the post so you can’t even see it in the photo) so you could hold it out like that, but there could be a ton of digital cleanup required for such minor details, and a lot of time spent with a fine-toothed comb checking for the goofs. The lower molars seem too straight to be true (and that’s coming from someone who regularly tries to square them up), but a bit behind that is an inverted slope that clearly has a taller gap on the top left corner than it does on the top right one.

    So basically, I’m seeing stuff that only makes sense in a photo of a real model, but other stuff that just screams CGI. I’m really not sure which I believe right now.

  12. Michael Wolf

    I’m a bit let down by the figures. The custom head pieces are a bit clunky looking and I have no idea what their doing with brick-built weapons. I mean there are existing LEGO weapons better than those..

  13. Alex

    These are obviously renders. For big sets the bricks look too perfect, especially when mold marks are photoshopped

  14. aanchir

    @Purple Dave: One definite factor I’ve noticed is set size: it’s very rare for things like the larger City and Ninjago sets to be depicted in full CGI on the box art, but for smaller and especially simpler/more standardized sets like Microfighters, Ninjago spinners/fliers, Chima Speedorz and Legend Beasts, Nexo Knights Ultimate packs and Battle Suits, and most Bionicle figures it’s pretty much par for the course.

    Sometimes another major factor is whether the set in question is being depicted in an action scene that might be tricky to shoot in real life. Case in point, a lot of Bionicle sets since the very first year have been depicted performing crazy actions like lava surfing, deep sea diving, swinging from vines, running, leaping, soaring through the air, or even just standing but viewed from an exaggerated camera angle. In general, a lot of Bionicle box art tends towards stuff that might be tricky to do with real photography where the physical toy most often needs both feet planted firmly on the ground to hold a believable pose. That said, Bionicle sets especially in the early years also often “cheated” with the poses by bending knee/elbow/waist joints or rotating heads that lacked physical articulation, and even in more recent years they have often actively played up the sense of “bringing the sets to life” by adding scratches and other forms of “battle damage” as well as glow effects.

    Another few sets that I remember being somewhat anomalous in having fully CGI box art in spite of their size were the Ultimate Build Lightning McQueen, Mater, and Francesco. In that case it could be explained in part by having to depict only a single “character” rather than a complete scene. In the mid-2000s, though, CGI box art was also used for entire waves of sets varied in size and subject matter such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Aqua Raiders, and 2008 Exo Force. And some of the time, as with the Bionicle box art mentioned above, box art for a particular theme wasn’t even intended to create a sense of realism — for example, the 2006 and 2007 Exo Force sets used photography for many of the bigger sets (and polybags) but CGI for most of the rest, but both versions were seemingly run through a “comic book” filter that simplified the shading and added black contour lines to enhance the theme’s intended manga/anime vibe.

    These Overwatch sets are somewhat anomalous for this day and age in terms of ALL the sets being depicted in CGI regardless of size/simplicity/category of subject, but in this case I think the idea is to try and give them a video game look. Mark Stafford has stated on Reddit that the art on one side of the box is meant to have more realistic shading while the art on the opposite side has a more rendered look meant to more closely simulate the in-game characters and environments. Of course, how effective it is at actually advertising the real appearance of the toys is up for debate.

  15. Purple Dave

    @Michael Wolf:
    Because with one new gun base they were able to make two guns in the smallest set, two more new guns in the Dorado set (one of which appears twice in Dorado and twice more in Gibraltar), and possibly Winston’s gun in the Gibraltar set. That’s what they want to see when they let the set designers call for a new mold, and the new gun base looks like it will be incredibly useful as a SNOT element and a greeble, and may very well inspire new construction techniques that allow things that aren’t currently possible.

    @Alex:
    These look less like final set images and more like some of the stuff they mock up for retailer purchasing agents. One of the years that I went to NYTF, I got a weird catalog that they were handing out just for that event, and it included several set images that were watermarked, meaning they were not meant for publication. Some of the sets never actually released (or did so in a very different manner than suggested by the catalog), and several sets looked radically different than what ended up being released, but the whole point of this catalog was to give the people with the biggest purse-strings some means of gauging which sets they were going to order, and how many copies they wanted.

    @aanchir:
    Oh, geez! I totally forgot about the Bionicle thing! Now that you bring it up, I definitely remember discussing stuff like how bent Tahu Nuva’s knees were, and it’s quite possible I even wrote an article on it back in the day (it’s been about 15 years, so I’m really not sure anymore). I also remember all the CGI distressing, but I don’t think I ever discussed that before. I kinda remember some of the Exo-Force sets having a cel-shaded look, but the only thing I really liked about that theme were the solid metallic robots (but not the red/blue/green blended ones), so I didn’t pay a lot of attention to them.

    So, you think those are the final box art, huh? Geez, I hope not. Some of them might be passable, but that Dorado box back looks _terrible_.

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