WhileOverwatchitself doesn’t have much in the way of story content, Blizzard has supplemented the game’s lore through other mediums, whether it be comic books, animated shorts, or even short stories. But now it looks like the world ofOverwatchis expanding into another space, as an Amazon listing has leaked the existence of anOverwatchnovel, which will apparently be the first in a planned series.
TheOverwatchbook is entitledThe Hero of Numbaniand it will be written by Nick Drayden, based on an original story from Drayden and members of the game development team. The book will apparently be published by Scholastic for release on August 05, 2025, with the Kindle edition retailing for $5.99. Of course, theOverwatchbook hasn’t been officially announced yet, so it’s quite possible that July 08, 2025 is just a placeholder date and $5.99 is a placeholder price. It will be the firstOverwatchnovel, joining other book projects like theOverwatchcookbookand art book.
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As for what theOverwatchnovel will be about, it will apparently follow Efi Oladele, the character who is responsible for creating thetank hero Orisa inOverwatchlore. The novel will be about Efi building Orisa to fight back against Doomfist. It’s unclear exactly how manyOverwatchcharacters will appear in the novel, but besides Efi, Orisa, and Doomfist, we do know that healer character Lucio will be a part of the story as well.
It sounds like the material being covered in the firstOverwatchnovel will stick pretty closely to the lore, and will more likely than not be considered canon. After all,Orisa’s origin story videohas already covered some of the story that will supposedly be covered in the novel. At any rate, it should go a long way in fleshing out the characters of Efi and Orisa, who haven’t had a ton of lore-building compared to some of the other characters on theOverwatchroster.
Assuming thisOverwatchbook leak is real, it’s honestly surprising that it has taken the game this long to get a proper novel. There have been multipleOverwatchshort stories, sure, but this will be the first full-length novel. With the way Blizzard expandsOverwatch’s story using other mediums, it seems like a novel would have been a higher priority, but fans will likely be happy that one’s finally coming at all, even if it’s later than expected.
Overwatchis out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with a Switch version launching on October 15.
