For me Venture could absolutely be linked to the Shambali Monastery map. Many people forget that that map has a small section of lore not mentioned in relation to Nepal, where we can see some mining areas. there are many posters on excavations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVtopFn44ts
there are also some tools that may appear to be the basis of Vulture’s rifle.
EDIT:
oh, there’s another big detail that I hadn’t noticed, on the shoulder o f Vulture: a logo that has already been seen somewhere in Petras in the lore of the archaeologist Hamid Fiasal! (min 3:40)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cinQ3j2xhTA
Could “vulture” be Hamid Faisal’s code name?
Space ranger from Lucheng Interstellar?
She could perfectly be Dr. Chao, mentioned by Mercy to Winston in Storm Rising about taking care of the physical in space (also supporting the theory that she could be a healer). it also suggests that the character is no longer able to walk, which could indicate a character who needs to float because she is no longer able to stand on her own legs.
Mercy: Don’t forget Winston, you need to be mindful of your bone strength. Especially if you’re going to be bouncing around like that.
Winston: I’ve been taking my supplements.
Mercy: You spent a lot of time on the moon, you need to take it seriously. Remember Dr. Chao.
Winston: I wonder how she’s doing. It can’t be easy running a giant company.
Mercy: Last I heard, they were working on a new space station.
A second hypothesis could concern Mei’s friend, Jiayi. There is a voiceline that says when we are at Lijiang TOwer.
Mei in Lijiang Tower: My friend Jiayi works here. She and I had a lot of fun in grad school. Maybe too much. giggle
However, we don’t even know if Dr.CHao and Jiayi are the same person, but “Jiayi Chao” could also be the full name.
I’d say no from a pure marketing/real world perspective.
Hamid Faisal is clearly an Arabic name, and I don’t really see Blizzard risking a character with both arabian roots and non-binary orientation.
Yes, we have Pharah… who’s half Canadian, doesn’t even speak Arabic (at least that I know, for sure her V.A. can’t) and was revealed lesbian 7 years after her introduction (so already an established character).
A character named Hamid Faisal (both fairly common names in Arabic) who happens to be non-binary seems way too risky for Bli$$ard.
IIRC, Dr. Chao’s photo should be on a desk, in one of the offices at Lijiang Tower. If that’s the case she can’t be Space Ranger, way too old (and different looking) for that concept art.
… it seems like an absurd argument to make in giving the characters a mirror of real-world politics considering that Overwatch’s motto has always been “Building the Optimistic Future”. it would be like saying that BLizzard implicitly wants to say that the Australian population would have no problem living in garbage rather than considering Junkretown a tribute to the post-apocalyptic vision of sci-fi literature.
which photo? I know there is only one of Dr. Harold Winston, but none of a woman (confirmed that she is a woman by countless dubs that have the most obligatory female pronoun in their grammar).
Yeah, that’s cool, but what about the fact real-world Blizz wants our real-world money? Just open your shop if you want a reality check. The less you’ll upset people from all around the world, the more they’ll spend on your game.
There’s a reason why the only African setting in the game is a fictional city in a fictional country. There’s a reason why you can have a map in Iraq, but that’s (surprisingly) another fictional city. There’s a reason you won’t likely never have and Israel map or an Israeli hero. There’s a reason why the Pride Event was “opt-in”, and even that happened Blizz’s departure from China.
It’s no surprise, a lot of games set on planet Earth have very similar policies.
Really, really, really bad example.
Different people react differently to different things. Mad Max is an Australian pop icon, doesn’t for sure feel disrespectuful to Aussies. Arabic heritage for Arabian people is totally another matter, and a deadly serious one.
Moreover, your example totally proves my point, because there was a lot of backlash in Australia even for the “Take out” sign in Junkertown map, when in Australia they say “Take away” like in Europe. And even before, a lot of Aussies complained about Rat and Hog’s voice actors not being Aussies and not being able to reproduce an Aussie accent.
So Blizz reacted, the sign was replaced with “Take away” and from that moment they preferred VA with the right accent over talented ones (for example, no hate on Matilda Smedius, but she’s clearly here just because she’s Swedish).
So, I don’t really think they will EVER risk to upset a consistent part of their playerbase (at least judging by how many KSA icons are around here these days). Their money is as good as anyone else’s, and why risk it when you can simply make Venture from some Western country, or at least from a “less dangerous” place?
I don’t think it’s right, it’s just real.
Can’t login now, and I can’t find any photo on the internet. I’ll check, but at this point it could be Mandela effect (I was remembering a photo of an old lady on a wheelchair on a desk).
I hate to go so off-topic and I hope we can move on from this, but these examples don’t make any sense:
Afrofuturism is first of all part of sci-fi literature rather than considered a sort of “corporate pandering”. it’s almost obvious to delve into it at least as much as the post apocalyptic future of mad max. and let’s be clear: afrofuturism was not born with black pantern movie / politically correct wave of internet… but it has existed since the 70s.
that Iraq is proposed as an oasis of science is the perfect example of an “optimistic future” that breaks the mold of a place of war. do you realize that it is like saying “they have made the Germany of Overwatch an abandoned war field almost as if was it a reference to the battles of the Second World War”? … It’s… absurd as a relevance to a sci-fi product just because they didn’t want to show the usual war field in Iraq.
it doesn’t seem to me that you have a clear idea of how far in advance they plan an event to be released in a live service, nor of the financial reasons for excluding China. netease left only two months before the release of the event, and for reasons directly involved in Activision’s monetary management (eham, mr kotick) on merchandise refunds in Asia, you can read about it in numerous financial articles instead of the dedicated ones videogames. and as applied to other countries that didn’t have midtown pride month, China would have no problem being part of that list. it literally makes no sense to speculate that they excluded ALL blizzard video games (except diablo immortal which was now under contract signed too recently) for overwatch only pride month. and after years from tracer and soldier lgbtq intro.
However, returning to the topic,
it seems that the recent declassified book confirms there is an archaeological organization behind that logo on the shoulder, and therefore it can be theorized that Hamid and Venture are colleagues of the same organization. reminds me of when we speculated that Liao might be ow’s new hero, but ultimately the creation of her was. I don’t rule out that Venture knows Hamid in some way.
I checked but there’s nothing. only the wheelchair. I think you remember this way because of the strong rumors surrounding Dr. Chao when Hammond was released.
Never said that. And anyway you’re totally missing the point, so whatever. Thanks for the correction about Lijiang.
This could be more likely, like we used to know Sanjay Korpal as a lore character for years and at the end we got Lifeweaver as (former) Sym’s colleague.
I just hope those two won’t be characters in their little pocket dimension, completely alienated from the rest of the cast like Illari.
it would be like saying that BLizzard implicitly wants to say that the Australian population would have no problem living in garbage rather than considering Junkretown a tribute to the post-apocalyptic vision of sci-fi literature.
and after years from tracer and soldier lgbtq intro.