Pixel P&L: Blizzard Is Making a Standalone Overwatch Game for Mobile

Welcome to another Pixel P&L edition. This issue takes 4 minutes to read. If you only have one, here are the 5 most important things:

• Blizzard is developing Overwatch Rush, a mobile hero shooter built from scratch for smartphones.

• Dream Sports appoints ex-Zynga executive Arpith Kanade to lead Dream Cricket studio's global expansion ahead of cricket's 2028 Olympics debut.

• Ubisoft CEO defends restructuring amid strikes, 200 Paris jobs on the line.

• Marvel's Wolverine launches September 15, filling the gap before GTA 6's November release.

• Evo plans massive global expansion into five new countries by 2027, sparking concerns about diluting grassroots appeal.

Let's get into it.

Blizzard Announces Mobile Shooter Set in Overwatch Universe

Blizzard Entertainment is developing a mobile game based on its Overwatch franchise, the company announced.

Overwatch Rush is a top-down hero shooter built specifically for mobile, not a port of the existing PC and console title. A dedicated team separate from Overwatch 2's development studio, Team 4, is building the game. Blizzard said the Rush team has "deep mobile experience," though it did not name the individuals involved.

Early gameplay footage released alongside the announcement shows characters moving across a map and using abilities through an on-screen interface. The build appears to be in early development.

Blizzard plans to run regional tests in select countries before a broader rollout. The company will collect player feedback through an official Discord server to inform future development.

No release date or target markets for the regional tests have been announced.

Dream Sports Names Ex-Zynga Executive To Lead Dream Cricket Studio

Dream Sports has appointed Arpith Kanade as head of studio for Dream Cricket, its mobile cricket game with 25 million users and over 500 licensed players.

Kanade, who previously held senior roles at Zynga where he worked on FarmVille 2, brings 15 years of gaming industry experience spanning product development, live operations, and monetization. He was also a founding team member at 99Games, a Udupi-based mobile studio.

His mandate is to grow Dream Cricket into what the company describes as the world's largest social cricket game, with a focus on international markets. Cricket's inclusion in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics is central to that pitch.

Dream Cricket is developed by Dream Game Studios, a unit Dream Sports formed after acquiring Pune-based Rolocule Games in 2021. The studio's previous CEO, Rohit Gupta, departed in November.

Dream Sports restructured into eight independent business units in 2025 following India's real-money gaming ban.

⚡️Quick Bytes

Ubisoft CEO defends restructuring as layoffs and strikes roil company

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said he "fully understands the legitimate concerns" of employees following a restructuring that cut 40 jobs in Toronto and launched a voluntary redundancy process targeting 200 positions in Paris. Over 1,200 employees struck earlier this month. Guillemot said planned cost reductions of €200 million would include "selective restructuring across the company."

Marvel's Wolverine set for September release, two months before GTA 6

Insomniac Games and PlayStation confirmed Marvel's Wolverine will launch on PlayStation 5 on September 15, 2026. The title, announced in 2021, fills a gap in the release calendar before Grand Theft Auto 6's planned November 19 arrival. No other major titles are currently scheduled between the two releases.

Evo plans global expansion and new world championship under RTS ownership

The Evolution Championship Series will expand into Brazil, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and China from 2027, owner RTS announced. A Fighting Game World Championship requiring proficiency across multiple titles is also planned for that year. Some community members have raised concerns that the expansion could dilute Evo's grassroots appeal, which dates to 1996.

⚔️Side Quest

🤣Laugh:

📺 Watch: Former EA Criterion veteran Matt Webster break down the upcoming Star Wars Galactic Racer. He explains how a distributed 75-person indie team is building AAA spectacle at 4K 60fps. The racing genre, reimagined for Star Wars. 

🎮 Play: The End Is Nigh is Edmund McMillen's darkest work, made during the bleakest period of his life, and it shows. You're Ash, a blob of black liquid collecting human body parts to build a friend after the apocalypse. It's not about speed like Meat Boy; it's brutally precise platforming with edge jumps and responsive controls. Classical music remixes underscore the incomprehensible anxiety. It is a journey that teaches you about yourself.

📚 Read: Game Economist Phillip Black calls out the industry for ignoring inflation. Supercell's revenue looks flat nominally, but inflation-adjusted? They're actually down significantly from their 2014 peak. Since 2020, U.S. inflation rose 26%, meaning every game without price increases has been running a virtual discount. Gaming revenue appears stable in nominal terms, but in real purchasing power, it's declining.

💡Did You Know

The classic Ecco the Dolphin video game's infamous difficulty was no accident. Developer Ed Annunziata admitted he was "paranoid" that kids would finish the game over a single weekend, so he deliberately cranked up the challenge on certain levels. His own words say it best: "So... I... uh... made it hard." The result was one of the most notoriously brutal games of the Sega Genesis era — a children's game about a dolphin that regularly reduced players to tears. Annunziata got his wish. Most kids never saw the ending.

📜 Quote of the Day

Was this forwarded to you? Sign up for free here. 

We read every email! Share your feedback by hitting reply.