With the gaming world still reeling from the Microsoft-Activision acquisition, some creative members of the community took the chance to flex in ways that were only a pipe dream until recently. One Overwatch League team's graphic designer went to work and created an awesome mashup that enlisted Soldier: 76 into the USNC Navy's Spartan ranks.
Around the Overwatch eSports spaces, players, fans, and other creators are dealing with the announcement as expected. Mostly joking about including Master Chief as a character in Overwatch. Others are doing things like imposing Spartan helmets onto Overwatch characters like Genji. The Los Angeles Gladiators took Reinhardt's trademark shield away and gave him the energy sword., but none have flexed that creativity quite like the Washington Justice.
The $68.7 Billion Microsoft acquisition won't be made official until June 2023, but that isn't stopping Overwatch fans and league teams from celebrating the merger. The Washington Justice posted a cool edit of Soldier: 76 in Spartan armor. The team's designer perfectly managed to impose Soldier: 76 into the armor and alongside the Battle Rifle, the character almost looks right at home in the Halo franchise. The stance is already similar to his default character stance in Overwatch, and they just changed the color of the Spartan armor to match the team colors while placing the Justice logo on the chest plate. The addition of a remix to Soldier: 76's voice line "We're all Spartan's now." is a clever touch.
The Halo Twitter account responded to the post with a gif of Spartan 117. A team-up of these two soldiers would surely be formidable in either of their games' lore. Overwatch fan reactions to this mashup on both Twitter and Reddit gave props to the creativity and how well the edit fits Soldier: 76, as well as disbelief that this interaction was even happening. However, it quickly strayed into mixing up the characters across all properties that have now been mixed in together via the Microsoft deal into some pseudo-Super Smash Bros team-up.
A question that would be asked by the fan base after the Microsoft and Activision acquisition was what would be the state of Activision-Blizzard's eSports programs. Microsoft proudly supports Halo eSports and has held championships throughout the years when Halo as a franchise waned in the cultural zeitgeist. Word coming from eSports analysts suggest that adjustment of operations will occur, but no one knows exactly what could happen as of now. The Call of Duty League's season is set to begin shortly and Overwatch League will begin in April on an early build of Overwatch 2