"In all of our games at Blizzard we borrow ideas from previous projects, previous games, we take a lot of inspiration from other things that we've done. So there are things from Titan in Overwatch, but it's not like there aren't things from World of Warcraft in Overwatch as well."
These are the words of Jeff Kaplan, who was working on Titan before becoming game director of Overwatch, spoken during a press conference at this year's Blizzcon (and reported here).
When asked if there was a link between the newly announced IP and the recently canceled MMO Titan, Kaplan was dismissive, saying: "I think there's a lot of assumptions, especially considering some recent stories that have come out, but Overwatch is its own game."
During the same event Blizzard's Chris Metzen discussed the transition between projects, explaining how important it was for the studio to get their collective feet back on the ground and go from working on something hugely ambitious and ultimately unobtainable, to building a new, simpler game in the form of Overwatch.
"[Titan] was a big, giant idea, it was almost like six video games in one, it was the most ambitious thing we've ever done. We wrestled with it for a long time. And it... it sucked. We couldn't figure it out. We couldn't crack it," Metzen explained, before going on to reveal how the change of direction has reinvigorated the team.
"It's been the funnest year of getting our feet back under us, getting our surety back. That magnetic north thing; we found it again and it feels good... I hope that people look at Overwatch as a very clever game, but I'm telling you, under the hood, we needed this. In a weird way it's like a rebirth [for Blizzard]; keep it simple, keep it fun."
Overwatch is heading to PC (a console version "sounds awesome" - but remains unconfirmed) and will be in beta sometime in 2015.