Roadhog and Widowmaker are probably the closest thing to “Pure Evil” villains in Overwatch: relatively unimportant backstory, simple motivations, enthusiasm for evil deeds, and supreme self-confidence. But Roadhog is just a wandering killer, and Widowmaker is little more than a pawn for her superiors.
I personally would like to see a leader from Talon (or perhaps the global conspiracy discovered by Sombra, or maybe Null Sector) who is utterly unsympathetic and always in control of the situation.
Doomfist is an interesting character and a nice leader for Talon, but he’s the hero of his own story. He fights for what he believes in, and not for personal gain or ambition. He hasn’t lost sight of his original goals, and he doesn’t do evil things for the sake of evil.
I’d like to see a villain more along the line of Megatron, Lex Luthor (not the Batman vs. Superman version), Darkseid, Emperor Palpatine, Archimonde in Warcraft 3, C’thun/Yogg-Saron in WoW, Diablo (or any of the Prime Evils and Lesser Evils in Diablo, really), the Queen of Blades (in Brood War) or Frieza. One way you could make them interesting is by highlighting how they differ from the heroes of Overwatch, and from other members of Talon.
Make no mistake, complex villains with detailed backstories and semi-sympathetic motivations (i.e. Doomfist, Sombra, Moira and Ashe) have their place in fiction, but I think there’s a shortage of unsympathetic villains in fiction, who are just there to kick butt and take names with nothing holding them back.
I could go for an “Exdeath”-themed villain who goes around wrecking everything and everyone while talking about some sort of character gimmick (like the Void in Exdeath’s case) while they do it.
You’re asking for a villain who is evil for the sake of being evil in a game where EVERYONE has some sort of tragic or misunderstood backstory or has valid motivations for turning to crime. Widowmaker isn’t Evil, she was brainwashed a billion times over and forced to abandon her former life to become Talon’s top assassin. There’s still traces of her former humanity still wandering around in her head, as evidenced on Christmas Day every year when she goes to visit her former husband’s grave.
Mako is haunted with the fact that it was his anti-Omnic actions that directly created the radioactive disaster that struck Australia and left him being forced to breath Hogdrogen on a regular basis to survive. He created the environment that Junkrat was forced to grow up in, and partially teamed up with him just to make sure he’s able to survive on his own. Yeah he’s a murderer, but he doesn’t go around killing people indiscriminately like a psychopath.
What you’re asking for is a Chaotic Evil villain. One who has no clear motivations for causing chaos and destruction and probably loves to gloat with a MU WAH HA HA HA evil laugh. There doesn’t exist anything like that in the story.
Hog is propably less of the villan than people actualy know
Yea he steal stuff, but as we know from his comics he was trying to save people, and still remembers it. I dont think he is THAT evil.
Yes yes I know about Reaper, but even he still has his humanity. Reaper acts like a Saturday Morning cartoon villain mostly as an act, but you can reason with him into not killing you.
Do we now? He seems to just work for talon, and thats it. I dont think Jack could walk up to him and talk
roadhog on the other hand, show alredy in lore that he is not just a killer, in his comics name wasted land, when he just let some people go after little scaring them away
Yes, but even if you don’t count Widowmaker or Roadhog, why is that a good reason not to add a villain like this? If there are no villains like that in the story, then that’s all the more reason to add one. If well-executed, it could easily create a very memorable villain that people love to hate.
Reaper has an extensive backstory that ties deeply into the plot, and has nuanced motivations for what he does. He willingly submits to Doomfist’s authority, and he shows no signs of treachery or ambition. This tells me that he believes in Doomfist’s and Talon’s goals to some extent.
He also never really does evil things unnecessarily; he doesn’t go down the streets murdering innocent civilians for no reason. There’s always a purpose behind his killings. This is not the case for a villain like Dio, who once forced a woman to murder her own baby, for no purpose other than the sheer joy of watching it happen.
It wasn’t my intention to say that there shouldn’t exist such a character. I was more fixated on pointing out that Widow and Hog don’t fit that description.
I’m certainly not against the idea of an ultimately evil force that Overwatch and Talon would have to team up to fight against, but I don’t think the story or game in general is ready for that yet.
Quoted from PlayOverwatch:
Mako watched as his home became an apocalyptic wasteland, and he was forever changed.
Adapting to his environment, he donned a mask and took to the broken highways of the Outback on his ramshackle chopper. Little by little, his humanity was forgotten. The last vestiges of Mako faded away and the ruthless killer Roadhog was born.
Maybe not, but I think it’s something that the writing team should keep in mind, especially if they plan to add a story mode eventually.
If we count out Widowmaker and Roadhog, then I think the closest thing we have to a “Pure Evil” villain is the omniums that instigated the Omnic Crisis and attack places like Russia and South Korea in the modern day. But that’s mostly because we don’t understand their motives; they could easily have a sympathetic motivation for all we know.
Not the way I see it. I’ll just quote myself since I saw someone else ask this same question:
He got drunk on his smoke powers, betrayed his closest allies and set himself on a course to find and kill them. He had never shown anything that makes you belive that he has a cause besides letting his rage consume the world
I disagree; the professionalism that he shows toward Doomfist in “Masquerade” indicates to me that he believes in Doomfist’s goals, and doesn’t want to just watch the world burn. But right now his motives are still somewhat ambiguous.
If he were to betray Doomfist because he feels like Doomfist is “going soft” after he achieves his goal of starting a war, that would make Reaper an unsympathetic villain in my eyes; because it would show that his motivations are selfish, he’s lost sight of his morality and original goals, and he’s only interested in revenge and mayhem. But again, right now I think Reaper’s motives are too ambiguous to call him a “Pure Evil” villain.
EDIT: Also, the fact that in “Reflections”, he spends Christmas in an alley watching a happy family implies that he has some regrets, which a “Pure Evil” villain generally doesn’t have.
It’s because they are badly written. They are unbelievable and boring. They aren’t really liked. They are very 2D. Same goes for “I’m good for the sake of being good” characters.
If that were true, then why are there so many “Pure Evil” villains that are so well-received? Lex Luthor (in the Justice League animated series), Megatron, Aku, Darkseid, Emperor Palpatine, Archimonde, C’thun, Yogg-Saron, Diablo, Mephisto, Baal, the Queen of Blades, Frieza, Dio… I could go on.
Not every villain (or hero, for that matter) needs to be believable, sympathetic, nuanced, or three-dimensional. There is no one universal formula for how a hero or villain needs to be written. Formulaic writing is boring anyway.
