Hi, everyone. Recently, I’ve been thinking more and more about Overwatch 2, and I rewatched the trailers. I then remembered an old forum post asking about if at any point in the Cinematics or in-game, one of our treasured characters could perish in the story.
So, I did some research, and started to eliminate some characters that would definitely not die off.
Some guaranteed safe characters are Tracer, Winston, Reinhardt, Mercy, Brigitte, Lucio, Echo, Baptiste, Sombra, Widowmaker, Ashe, Sojourn, Doomfist, Pharah, D.Va, Orisa, Hammond, Genji, Mei, Sigma, Symmetra, and Zarya. This makes up a good majority of characters that are most likely necessary plot-wise.
Now, I’ve got three huge contenders for characters that would most likely die sometime in the story.
Reaper and Soldier: 76 are the two most likely to die in my theory of where the story will take us. It is almost destined for these two to eternally fight over their feuds in the past. What happened back then lead them to fake their deaths and take new personas, so it’d almost be fitting that a fight between them now should neatly wrap both of their arcs up with their demise. Two old soldiers fighting it out to the point where they both die from their actions, and in their last few minutes or seconds, they reconcile as the good friends they used to be.
These next few characters I’m mentioning are really only here because they are not necessary plot-wise (as far as we know).
Bastion is a universally loved character story wise, but hated game wise. If you’ve read the Overwatch graphic novel, you would know that Bastion has been with Torbjorn for awhile in the story, getting repaired and taken care of, as Torbjorn believes Bastion is a special omnic. It would be absolutely heart-wretching to see our favourite e54 Bastion perish in a fight, but I see a much better way to plan his demise story wise. We didn’t Sombra at all in the gameplay and story trailers, and I believe that’s for a purpose. In my theory, Sombra is going to be used to completely eliminate or take control of the omnics that are helping Overwatch or are simply associated with an Overwatch member. I see a possible mission where Sombra hacks Bastion and turns him against the players, eventually leaving the team no choice but to eliminate him. It would be an extremely emotional scene and battle, having to destroy the friend you’ve made and tried to help, and that’s my reason why Bastion could be a possible target for elimination by the Overwatch story devs.
There are a couple characters that fall into the same category as Bastion where they serve no real story purpose overall, as far as we’re concerned. Zenyatta is another candidate that Sombra could turn against Genji for instance.
Ana is another character that has the possibility to not make it to end of the story, it would be fitting for all the older legacy Overwatch members to perish together, which is why I don’t see Ana dying with Reaper and Soldier: 76 as a far off idea.
Other characters that I haven’t called safe or made a case for are simply characters that would get an emotional reaction from the audience and players. Characters like McCree, Hanzo, Junkrat, Roadhog are well liked characters story wise but overall don’t serve much of a purpose to the story, with McCree being the outlier in that list after getting Echo.
There’s one character I haven’t mentioned and that is Moira, which I could really see going either way. It would probably be another Reaper vs Soldier: 76 scenario, but instead with Mercy and Moira, but I seriously doubt Blizzard would let Mercy die in the story.
I know this is probably a topic that a lot of people have thought of, and if you think I made a mistake, I’d be happy to hear your opinion down below in comments. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great day!