Genesis (miniseries)
An animated documentary-style series exploring the Omnic Crisis.
Genesis is an American animated mini-series of shorts created and produced by Blizzard Entertainment. Based on the Overwatch video game franchise, the three-part series premiered on YouTube on July 6, 2023.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Science fiction
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Episodes
- 3
- Runtime
- 5–7 minutes
- Company
- Blizzard Entertainment
- Network
- YouTube
- First aired
- 6 July 2023
Facts from the source article.
Premise
Omnica Corporation creates sentient robots called omnics through global AI research. These omnics take over many tasks, easing human life. Omnica hires robotic prodigy Dr. Mina Liao to further develop omnics, leading to the Omnic Crisis—a war between omnics and humans. In response, the global task force Overwatch is formed.
Development and release
Blizzard had previously released animated cinematic shorts focused on individual character lore, which were positively received and compared to Pixar's production value. Story elements were often absent from the games, and Blizzard intentionally used transmedia storytelling through shorts, comics, and other media. Genesis was announced on June 30, 2023, employing an anime art style and marking one of the studio's first 2D animation projects to go beyond character backstories and focus on the overarching narrative. Presented as a documentary from the human perspective, the series premiered on July 6, 2023, with the episode "Dawn," ahead of Overwatch 2's "Invasion" update. The second episode, "Innocence," released on July 13, and the third, "Rebirth," on July 20. The series followed Blizzard scrapping a long-planned co-op PvE mode that was to include narrative elements.
Reception
Scott Duwe of The Daily Dot called the trailer "freakishly timely" due to its depiction of helpful AI turning on humanity. Kenneth Shepard of Kotaku expressed surprise it took Blizzard this long to invest in an animated series, noting previous shorts told disparate stories. After the series ended, Shepard felt it was a "glorified trailer" whose documentary format provided information without exploring themes, though he praised its "gorgeous animation and cinematography" and noted some parts had "gravitas."
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