I'm very confused. What is OW's lore system?

Haven’t played the game in years but I always liked the lore. I always found this sci-fi element cool. And it seems like everything was based around that.
And now I’m thinking more about Hanzo and Genji and now this new character. So, is it magitek then?

Are lot of heros’ abilities technology and a mix of magic? For some reason the thought of magic in the universe bothers me a bit. When it came to Hanzo and Genji’s dragons I always kind of assumed something like very advanced, unique nanotech with a mix of bio engineering so only people in their family can use them.

But then I think about Zenyatta and all the omnics who have his ability and what they call souls. Once again I just see it as healing tech but they call it like some type of spiritual thing.

I’m just getting pulled all over the place on what the setting and power system of this game is.

unfortunately, the lore of overwatch is a shambles. Lots of information via Twitter and interview, constant retcon etc.
Overwatch has no system.
In addition, the lead writer Micheal Chu left the company a few months ago, even though he himself used a lot of retcon, as far as I know he was the mastermind behind the lore.
And alone with Krikio, Blizzard is already getting into contradictions again. how can kiriko train with hanzo and genji when kiriko and genji are more than 10 years apart. Genji is 35 and kiriko between 20 and 25.
to be precise, more or less all age numbers have been erased. Actually, these were in the backstory of the heroes on the official website, but not anymore.

So you can assume that more retcon will be used in the future and there will be absolutely no continuity or meaningful explanations in the lore.

Yes, it’s difficult to come up with a large and complex lore that makes sense and it’s never going to be 100% possible, but Blizzard isn’t even trying.

The lore is only a means to an end and is broken and bent as needed. It’s just the setting for a game.

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Because the truth is that Kiriko is at least in her late twenties.

TL;DR: Don’t think too hard about it.

Overwatch is a superhero universe roughly set in the 2070s. The worldbuilding revolves around characters, as they’re made up on the fly. The vagaries of nature and the potential of technology are used as setpieces to provide minimal context to the crazy powers of every Hero in the game, whether it be time bending, necromancy, or Transformers. Most hero abilities fall under the categories of “gadgets”, “robots”, “genetic experimentations”, and/or “time-space anomalies”. Genji, Hanzo, and Zen were the ones that had vague spiritual elements to them, but since they were the exceptions, we assumed that they were the kind of hard-light nanotech you described. With Kiriko’s release, where none of it is given a proper explanation, we’re assuming that it’s probably just magic now. That opens up the new fifth category: “magic”. Fun.

Confoundingly, a handful of Hero abilities are not regarded as canon, and only exist in-game. Despite having characters who can freely manipulate gravity and dematerialize their bodies someone decided that they could not suspend their disbelief for elements such as Lucio’s sonic healing/sound barrier, Zenyatta’s spiritual orbs, and Mercy’s revive. Granted, that last one is probably for the best that it’s not a strictly canon ability, just because a remedy for death is a bit of a quagmire to write around once you’ve invented it. This convention seems to be partly established by what writers choose to depict in Overwatch media, and partly established by Twitter and forum posts from writers.

There’s a few statements out there echoing the sentiment that they go out of their way to keep things vague so that they never feel “constrained” by the lore. Since then, things have gotten even less defined. Take that as you will. It does not help that the lore has been in a state of flux ever since it came out. There was a graphic novel planned to release right around when the game came out in 2016, but it was canned when - you guessed it - they didn’t want to commit to that. They felt they couldn’t deliver. They believed that it was better to provide a loose framework of a narrative for fans to play around in, rather than attempt to tell a cohesive story. I’m not just ragging on the Overwatch team: you can read Jeff Kaplan talk about it himself.

Fair enough. It’s not what I’d prefer, but it’s a legitimate play. A problem arises when things become inconsistent, contradictory, nonsensical, because new lore isn’t being “constrained” by pre-established lore, and Twitter and forum posts masquerade as legitimate worldbuilding. A facade is at least supposed to look convincing from the one side you’re meant to look at it from.

I could keep going, but I believe I’ve answered the question.

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He was the lead writer, but there were other writers - and new writers, making up the Narrative Team, have been hired since. The lore is in good hands.

A lot of things can seem misleading due to the way they act in game

Zennyatta’s orbs alter the mind, making it tranquil and focused or stressesed and panicked, but in game that translates as raw healing and dmg vulneravility respectively

Moira drains cells from living organisms to create the gas that regenerates the tissue of her allies, so in canon she cannot heal or damage any omnics or other machines like DVa’s mech but in game she can for gameplay reasons

Just to name two examples but yeah, you have to look at the actual lore to know how character abilities work. This includes neat details in the Archives missions: in Retribution all Talon units are human so Reyes and Moira can use their abilities normally; in Uprising the enemies are omnics so Torbjörn has enough metal to reload his backpack and get both ammo, materials for his turret and fuel for the molten core; when someone is incapacitated Mercy conjures a burst of her healing energy to get them back up inmeditely so we know her “rez” isnt a true rez because if the timer goes down and the ally actually dies the match is over she aint reviving that!

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