I’ve seen some people really hate the idea that OW didn’t have any magic in it originally and it was stated they won’t be adding it and now with Kirko that has been retconned.
Personally I think it’s kind of wierd to introduce magic into the world because there was such an emphasis on technology and now that magic is introduced it kind of opens the flood gates to other gods/powers, and if not then why is the fox spirit the only “real” magic/god power?
Hanzo and Genji can summon dragons but the devs always made it very clear that it’s not magic, they only confirmed that it was magic with Kiriko, hence magic being retconned in.
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Not like Hanzo’s dragon has not existed since launch or anything…
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TBH, the most bizarre thing I find about Kiriko is that in her cinematic, she had a 7 year old almost cleave a man’s head off with an axe. Like, why?
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This goes to show that you don’t know what you’re talking about on the topic.
This video is a good one on that topic.
While they never explained what it is, they always said it wasn’t magic, and whether it’s hard light or nano technology, it’s explainable with the technology available in the OW universe.
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Hanzo’s dragons have as far as I recall been explained to be the same type of “hard light” that Symmetra make use of, being generated by the tattoos on his arm. Overwatch has always had an emphasis on building the world around technology and its own futuristic technology.
Though Blizzard isn’t shy of retconning when they feel like it. Just look at WoW, it’s a big pile of mess because of just how careless Blizzard is with their lore. So don’t be surprised that OW lore gets wrecked as well
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Could also be nanotechnology that’s specifically locked onto and only locked onto Shimada DNA, it’s feasible as they were a very powerful, very rich family involved in the criminal underworld.
Point is, even though it was never explicitly explained it was always confirmed as not to be magic and is explainable with technology.
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I kind of look at the OW universe as being “comic book stuff” so this isn’t too strange to me. Iron Man runs around with Doctor Strange and it all still works so I would say try not to let it bother you too much. (And yeah I know there’s different comics with different stuff going on, seems like to me though over time they all tend to get more fantastical, especially as other writers come aboard, which is what’s happened in OW with Chu stepping down.)
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All they said is “lol it’s not magic”
Everything the community made afterwards was just a lot of guesses. I know it is tough since OW doesn’t have consistent lore but this hardly feels like “a big retcon”, especially in OW’s cartoony looking world.
Gods and Spirits existing doesn’t mean you have warlocks and harry potter in your story. In our world, if a miracle happened or someone had an encounter with a ghost/etc, most people wouldn’t call it “magic” either. We’d just say, “sure, Susan” and go about our lives haha.
Genji, Hanzo, and Kiriko could just be a cut above the rest on understanding “true reality” 
I am sure other normal people and even heroes in OW will scoff at their ‘spirit talk’ too and just think that it is one big flashy trick (Or in Kiriko’s case, she’ll downplay it like she did to the old man and kid. I imagine Hanzo/Genji don’t discuss it often either)
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Because it was funny and adorable! Also the cinematics tend to show the heros abilities in a way thats abit skewed but still similar to how the affect each game. In game, the tori gates that Kiriko summon boslster your team to essentially press w. Well the child with an axe certainly pressed W M1 to try and win the fight🤣
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I wouldn’t like magic in overwatch. I don’t know why, I LOVE magic everywhere else, but Overwatch, no thank you. strange but that’s how the cookie crumbles… without magic :'D I don’t mind the fox though, let’s assume the fox is not magic as well and she just always has her own portable light projector handy…Not but what would it mean to have magic? More bullcrap like moira? I mean I’d like to keep the hitscan/straight-projectile-level pretty high… Let’s not change it away from an FPS please 
that’s actually the one concern why I’m afraid of magic… I want it to stay an “FPS” game…
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“Hard light” is magic anyway, same as a lot of other things in the lore explained with technobabble.
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They seemed like they were possessed by something. Which sort of undoes the argument of nanotech I’ve seen. Nanotech doesn’t posses people as far as I’m aware.
They stomp on what Chu built up like what they’ve did with Jeffs vision.
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OW has no wordbuilding to speak of and veeeeeeery slow pace of developing lore.
I honestly don’t care, because they utterly failed at developing what was at first an interesting world.
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It’s just so jarring and out of place. The whole setting and ‘story’ that OW was presenting was a cartooning techno-future with almost every ‘superhero’ in this story having their powers originating from some weird tech. Even when not explained, the character designs all had neat cybernetics or chunky techno super-suits.
Like so far everything magic-like can easily be hand-waived away by ‘technology!’
Hanzo ult - big cool energy arrow shaped like dragon
Genji ult - big sword with cool energy dragon attached (he’s also a cyborg!)
Reaper - he’s made of nanomachines, son
Mercy’s resurrect - literally just a gameplay abstraction of taking someone to the hospital
Zenyatta and his Iris - like a major aspect of OW lore is that AI machines came about and we all started to question whether they have ‘souls’ or not.
Heck until I played the game I thought it was wackier than it was - I had no idea Winston was unique as a science experiment, and I thought Windowmaker was an alien!
So with the reveal of Kiriko and her remarkably unexplained magic and her remarkably bland design with little to no cool techno design to it, just seems so out of place and makes the game look a lot more like those mixed-bag mmo/moba games where everything goes.
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The only proof of this is that Michael Chu who is no longer the writer of OW said no when people asked if it was magic.
Didn’t Zen already counted as having magic/religion thing going on?
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doesnt really matter tbh, Shimada dragons was never explain, devs said its not magic. same for Zenyatta’s orb, other characters questioned it but he just reply it with “kekw get gud lmao”.
at this point we should just accepted that there isnt any deep meaning behind their power, Japan in OW is the land of spirit animals, just because its Japan.
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OW2 Zenyatta has a voice line with Mercy that ‘magic’ is just science we have not yet understood…“perhaps.”
Like it’s not technology like nanotechnology or robot or something. In OW universe, I guess magic is just some energy manipulation stuff that some heroes have learned some art in. Even Doctor Strange in MCU does not term himself as a magic-user but rather as a “Master in Mystic Arts.” I assume they are going with the same route in OW. People having ability to manipulate matter and energy through some understanding of how the OW universe works. For them, it is still ‘science’ in a way.
Of course, people will have an opinion that if it’s not hardcore tech like nano or something then it’s "magic’ in their book and I’m okay with that. Since I don’t really care that much about the lore. I just like care about character relationships, interactions, the conflict of factions etc. It’s same case with WoW lore, I’m just here to see cool and emotional stuff so I value the “Rule of Cool” or “Power of Friendship” tropes more rather than consistent world-building but even more so, I’m just here to play the game, not worry about retcons because that’s like super common in Blizzard writing if you know how WoW works.
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Yeah, I feel the same way, I liked the aesthetics and design of overwatch and I feel like a large part of that was based off of everything being technology based.
I also just like the world building aspect of it too, it was more interesting to me and felt kind of unique.
It’s a shame they’ve decided to just throw all that out with Kiriko.
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