Aside from some pre-match banter between heroes, there is little within Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch to explain the backstory of the game, but the game studio has big plans for how it is going to flesh out the world and characters of Overwatch. This week, Blizzard detailed its plans to release a series of animated shorts and comics that will reveal the story behind its highly anticipated team-based shooter.

“Interested in the story behind Genji’s and Hanzo’s in-game banter?” Blizzard wrote in a blog post. “Wondering why Tracer and Widowmaker don’t seem to get along? Curious about all those jars of peanut butter scattered around the lab in Watchpoint: Gibraltar? You’ll have a chance to dig deeper into these characters’ histories and explore their world beyond the battlefield through a collection of animated shorts, free digital comics, graphic novels, and more.”

Blizzard had already teased some of the animated shorts it is working on at last year’s BlizzCon, and so far they appear to be following the characters of Tracer, Winston, Widowmaker, and Soldier 76. The first short will be arriving sometime this month.

Since it was first announced at BlizzCon 2014, Overwatch has drawn a number of comparisons to Valve Corps Team Fortress 2, and animated shorts are yet another feature that the two games would share in common. Over the years, Valve released a number of “Meet the Team” videos that followed each of the game’s nine classes, but it appears that Blizzard will be taking a more traditional story-focused approach to its shorts than Valve did.

Blizzard is certainly no stranger to creating impressive video content, and the studio has a long history of incredible cinematics for its games. If the original cinematic trailer for Overwatch is an example of what we can expect from Blizzard’s animated shorts, then fans have plenty to be excited about over the coming months.

In addition to the animated shorts, Blizzard will also be releasing a series of free digital comics leading up to the game’s release that will explore the history of some of the game’s other heroes, including Junkrat, Roadhog, Reinhardt, and McCree. A full length graphic novel called Overwatch: First Strike, which takes place decades before the events of the game, will be released later this year.

You can watch the six minute long cinematic trailer for Overwatch below (keep an eye out for a Hearthstone cameo):

Images courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment Inc