It's not often you witness a competitive first-person shooter's developer allow its characters to indulge its audience's romantic fantasies. But then again, it's not often you have a roster of characters as charismatic and swoon-worthy as Overwatch 2's.

Since its release in 2016, the Overwatch series has garnered a reputation for creating diverse, compelling, and extremely attractive heroes. It comes as no surprise then that if you search "Overwatch" on An Archive of Our Own, a popular fan fiction site, nearly 40,000 stories featuring these characters are available to read. However, Blizzard itself greenlighting a project focused on putting these characters in romantic situations is a bit of a surprising choice, albeit one I absolutely stand behind.

Released on February 13, the cleverly titled Loverwatch is a limited-time dating sim set in the world of Overwatch. In it, you can romance two of Overwatch's most acclaimed heroes, Mercy and Genji, as well as relentlessly tease a toga-wearing Hanzo. To clarify just how this free browser game came to be, three Overwatch developers who worked on the project, Senior Narrative Designer Miranda Moyer, Narrative Designer Kyungseo Min, and Overwatch Brand Manager Beth Bryson, hosted a group interview exploring the process of creating the game, as well as some of their favorite moments from it.