LinkedIn leak suggests Diablo and Overwatch TV shows are incoming
Activision President, Nick van Dyk, has gamers talking with his latest LinkedIn posts. His profile update mentions a Diablo TV show, an Overwatch TV show and a Call of Duty “television universe”.
Van Dyk lists himself as Executive Producer of a Diablo TV programme “currently in pre-production for distribution worldwide through Netflix” (via Gamespot).
That’s going to be a big, big deal for Diablo fans and – as Netflix showed with the recent release of The Witcher – game tie-in shows have the potential to do very well on the streaming platform.
Van Dyk’s profile explains that the the show will be “rendered in anime style.” As an expansive RPG, there’s plenty of directions in which Activision Blizzard can go with the Diablo IP. We’re excited to see what form the Netflix show takes.
Related: Overwatch 2
Via LinkedIn
The Activision President goes on to explain that he “developed and sold an animated series based Blizzard’s Overwatch franchise”.
While there’s plenty of directions for a potential Diablo game, Overwatch presents less obvious ways to craft a compelling narrative. The character-based hero shooter sees players blast their way through a cartoon-y and violent universe with a variety of weapons.
The game pits six against six in a shoot-out revolving around a set task. The set task varies from map to map and can be anything from a dominating a point type scenario to escorting a payload across the map.
The characters do pack superhero style abilities though, so we can see Activision maybe figuring out a fun way for that to play out on TV.
Beyond these revelations van Dyk’s LinkedIn profile also makes mention of a “Call of Duty cinematic and television universe”. This is interesting because, while a Call of Duty film has reportedly been put on hold, there had previously been little to suggest a television version might appear.
Related: Diablo 4 — Everything we know about the long-awaited sequel
There’s a precedent to suggest that Activision Blizzard is likely to act on these promises too. We’ve already seen a Skylanders TV programme land on Netflix, Skylanders Academy was released back in 2016, with the final season landing in 2018.
That means that lines of communication between Activision and Netflix are very much open and, at this stage, there’s no reason to doubt the imminent arrival of Diablo and Overwatch TV series’. Bear in mind though that the production process can be a minefield. Watch this space for more updates.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
