In-game year turn-over and how it affects lore (Oslo!)

General Discussion
1

In the recent Oslo archive post, an editor’s note comments that the Atlas news article was released 8 years ago. We had the Reflections comic to denote the passing of a year LAST year, but not this year… So is it roughly 2078, or are we still in-game in 2077?

Also, how will this affect our heroes ages? Will they be changed as the in-game year ticks over or are they considered “frozen in time” because in-game story details don’t matter? What about new heroes; are their ages determined by the starting year when Overwatch was released (60 years from 2016, approx 2076) or this “current” in-game year?

I’ll probably look into Oslo a bit more when I get home, but this question always nags at me. What do y’all think?

(Also to nip this in the bud i’m ignoring any “waa the lore is a mess” unhelpful commentary so feel free to get that out of your system)

2

I’m not entirely sure how the lore is progressing, but from what I can gather, all agents who got the Recall have been headed torwards Gibraltr, along with any allies they’ve picked up that wanted to come along the way. I think we are in a kind of “transitional” stage, where the breaking out of Doomfist, the creation of Orisa, the return of Talon’s leadership, taking up of arms of Brigitte and a few other heroes, are all pointing towards a giant war, with both sides gathering up resources and fighters.

We’ll probably get a talon tank (I vote AR-35, aka “Ares”) and a new defense hero before the plot really starts moving forward.

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For sure! I’m mostly curious if this report confirms if our in-game year has turned over or if we’re still very close to the masquerade/searching comics in terms of timing (released last year).

4

I think we are about a few months after Masquerade, maybe.

5

Here’s my best guess at the modern Overwatch timeline:

Spring 2076

  • [Recall] Reaper attacks Winston at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, prompting him to activate the Recall; Tracer answers immediately.
  • [Rise and Shine] Mei is woken from cryosleep by Winston’s message.
  • [Cinematic Trailer] Winston and Tracer stop Reaper and Widowmaker from stealing the Doomfist gauntlet from a museum.
  • [Alive] Widowmaker assassinates Mondatta (Tracer interferes but is unable to stop her)

Summer 2076

  • [Trainhopper] McCree stops a Talon attack on a hypertrain heading for Houston.
  • Soldier: 76 attacks Watchpoint: Grand Mesa and steals a pulse rifle prototype.
  • [A Better World] Vishkar (with Symmetra’s help) gets a building contract to renovate the slums of Rio de Janeiro; Lucio leads a rebellion to expel them and becomes an overnight sensation with his music
  • Junkrat and Roadhog go on worldwide crime spree to collect treasure to buy their way back into Junkertown
  • [Sombra ARG] Sombra uses the online community to hack Lumerico and blackmail Guillermo Portero
  • [Infiltration] In November, Sombra, Reaper and Widowmaker assault Volskaya Industries to assassinate Katya Volskaya; Sombra sabotages the mission so she can extort Volskaya. Volskaya reaches out to Aleksandra Zaryanova to track her down.

Winter 2076

  • [Reflections] Tracer and Emily spend Christmas with Winston. Genji stays with Zenyatta in Nepal. Junkrat and Roadhog go to Luna Park. Reinhardt spends Christmas with the Lindholm family. Ana and Soldier: 76 set up a base in the necropolis. Fareeha visits her father in Canada.

Spring 2077

  • Doomfist escapes his imprisonment. He attacks Numbani airport after retrieving his gauntlet. Witnessing his destruction, Efi Oladele is inspired to make a new guardian for Numbani.
  • [Masquerade] Doomfist, Widowmaker and Sombra meet with Maximillien in Moncao, then go to Venice during Carnivale (late February) to take out the Talon leaders opposed to Doomfist’s return.
  • Orisa is created.
  • [Searching] Zarya, still searching for Sombra, passes through Numbani. She meets with Lynx Seventeen.
  • [Binary] Following reports of a Bastion terrorizing northern Sweden, Torbjorn goes looking and finds an unusual Bastion who does not follow normal protocols. He takes the Bastion into his care and away from the police that seek to destroy it.

Summer 2077

  • [Searching] Zarya and Lynx track Sombra to Dorado and confront her.

I’m fairly confident this is as far as the timeline goes, but Blizzard has not yet acknowledged the year passing. With that in mind, it’s safe to assume that any year counts (8 years ago, 7 years ago, etc.) should be counted from the year the Recall was initiated.

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6

I disagree: I don’t think it’s safe to assume anything about the passage of time in the story given the many clarifications that have been made, which is why I made this thread! I think recall is a good starting point, and it SEEMS like in-game time stands still… but the timeline IS moving in the comics.

So when we have new developments like Uprising’s trailer saying 7 and then 8 years, does that refer to an event that happened a year before Uprising because of the in-game frozen tine… or are we taking into account the canonical passage of time and working in the same year as the Null Sector attack because we’re now 1 year later?

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A couple of observations about past events:
Operation: White Dome likely took place before the King’s Row Uprising, since Torb’s arm is replaced in the Chief Engineer Lindholm skin.

Interesting note, Doomfist mentions the Uprising as a missed opportunity, implying maybe they could’ve done something. I think Talon and a Null Sector are affiliated, and that’s Maximilien’s connection in Talon, an organization that doesn’t seem to be very kind to omnics, considering the prohibition of Maximilien playing in the Casino. He definitely seems the smooth-talking, mob-boss type that could organize a faction like Null Sector.

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Yeah, White Dome was about 23 years in the past given that Brigitte was close to being born when it took place :slight_smile:

Would love more Maximilien content. Very interesting character.

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I for one think that the game devs are keeping to the “actual fights of the Game are all non-canon”, while working on a big begind the scenes story.

Speaking of, I think that the Conspiracy Sombra is looking into is connected to Omnica Corp., and i think the God AI’s aren’t as sealed as we think, and are moving the world into a massive war between Talon and Overwatch to cover their REAL machinations, whatever those are. Probably some kind of “take over the world” plot. It’s likely than during the new uprising event, we’ll got a more concrete timeline.

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Oh sure, I think that too -it’s been stated plenty of times, but my worry is that some details of new characters and events have been scatted in-game which muddles that quite a lot. Sombra’s appearance, the entirety of Doomfist’s build-up and Orisa’s emergence, etc. The fights and team compositions are, of course, non-canonical, but there’s so much story buried in the maps that there’s a lot of bleed-over that is REALLY COOL to witness… But also makes things like this really confusing. Especially the “archives”, which go back to times in Overwatch’s past.

11

Ah, I think I see where you’re coming from, friend.

You’d like a more defined timeline, with some specifics about when everything takes place so its not all jumbled up?

I can get that. I agree, we need a more concrete timeline to straighten it out.

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Yes, precisely. I don’t see a reason to write “8 years from the present” if you could write a defined year instead, because “the present” isn’t defined. Are we 8 years from Recall, 60 years in the future? Or has one or two years past, given that canonically we’ve at least hit 2077 and possibly 2078?

It’s REALLY hard for a leyman to get into the lore because of this, and even for me it’s something that’s hard to parse.

13

These are some good questions, I love seeing Lore threads😁

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14

I understand completely. I’m hoping that with the new Uprising, we’ll get something to help figure that out

We can only hope. And wait.

15

Sup JellyandJam! I never did hear your thoughts on Perci and Shaman =]

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Thanks J&J! <3 Hopin’ to stir up some answers! :smiley:

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17

It’s frustrating that they probably won’t ever give us solid dates.

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Yeah, it really is! Honestly the game has come a long way from being super ambiguous to where it is now - really there’s no harm in nailing down the dates. It feels like a lack of commitment which doesn’t seem very confident from a writing standpoint. :frowning:

19

I’d be happy with just their birthdays - not even the years, we can reverse engineer those based on whatever the ‘current’ year is. Just day and month, what’s the harm in that?

20

I wish you luck, because Jelly wants answers too😁

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