Unanswered Questions

General Discussion
1

With Overwatch 2 being in the distant horizon, and no new heroes and maps coming for a while, I think it would be in the Overwatch team’s best interest to wrap up the many loose ends in the lore behind Overwatch. Since OW2 is about the present, I’d like for them to detail more about what happened in the past (like what OW was originally for). Here are some examples:

What exactly caused the Omnic Crisis? We know that the Omnics decided to turn against humanity, but we never knew how it exactly happened. Was it a cyber attack, a glitch in programming, some third party interference? We don’t know, but I’d like to find out.

How did the world leaders find and recruit the founders? We know that as a way to counteract the Omnic invasion, world leaders gathered to form what we know as Overwatch. From that team, Jack Morrison, Ana Amari, Gabriel Reyes, and Torbjorn Lindholm are the only four out of the six that haven’t been shown how they were inducted into the first strike team. We know how Reinhardt Wilhelm (Honor and Glory), and a bit of Mina Liao (Echo origin story) were accepted into the team, but I’d like to know more about the others.

Who founded Talon? We know a good handful of the people who are a part of–or once were a part of–Talon, but we don’t know who founded the organization. They might save that for OW2, but I’d think it would be better to reveal that now rather than in a story mode about the recommissioning of Overwatch.

What happened to the Omnica Corporation? We know they were a leading hand in the cause of the Omnic Crisis, but we never heard what happened to them afterwards. Were they forced to shut down? Did they step down at their own accord? Were all the employees faced with reprecussions and face further discrimination in other lines of work? We don’t know.

What events unfolded during the destruction of the Swiss HQ? We know how it ended, but we don’t know the full context of how such an event even happened. How did Talon sneak into the HQ? Was it even Talon who did it? Where was everyone during this event? What device was used to cause such a thing? All questions with no confirmed answer.

Why aren’t some heroes’ lore further explained? What government organization had Sigma in containment? Why did Reaper join Talon? What even goes on in Vishkar, Helix, and other organizations? What even is Zenyatta!? All important context that we have no definitive answer for.

What story importance do miscellaneous heroes play? Why is Ashe important? Why is Junkrat, Roadhog, and the entirety of Junkertown important? Why is Symmetra important? What is Hanzo doing? Once again, all questions with no straight answer.

And most importantly:

Why is Soldier: 76 gay!? What purpose does this hold? Does it move his story forward? How is knowing what a person likes important when a global war is going on? Why did they announce such an out of left field thing when the character’s been around for two years as of that time? I hope it wasn’t tokenism, but that’s what I got from it (due to other companies doing likewise).

Thank you for reading through this. If you have questions of your own, please feel free to leave a comment below.

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2

The exact cause is unknown but there is a News Article that details the failure of the Ominum Corporation.

Source: Overwatch is Back: Uncertainty and Hope After UN Confirms Vigilante Activity - News - Overwatch

The same news article details this:

Source: Overwatch is Back: Uncertainty and Hope After UN Confirms Vigilante Activity - News - Overwatch

From what I know, Talon to some capacity might have existed even before the Omnic crisis, but this is one of the true unanswered questions

See above.

There is little on the exact causes of Overwatch’s downfall, but this is a decent summary again from the same article:

All we know it’s a “secret”…

Source: Overwatch 2 - Heroes - Sigma

In general, mostly from dissent from Jack Morrison and a growing frustration to how Overwatch was run. (See above about the Fall of Overwatch.)

  • Volskaya Industries is a contracted manufacturing conglomerate by the nation of Russia to manufacture arms and mechs.
  • The Vishkar Corporation of southern India rose up and begun a laborious process of creating new, self-sustaining cities to house the nation’s displaced population following the Omnic Crisis. One such city, Utopaea, was created using radical hard-light technology that enabled its architects to shape the city’s streets, utilities, and living spaces in the blink of an eye. Vishkar often builds cities under contracts that allow them to govern the populace. (The Symmetra Comic “A Better World” grants us insight on Vishkar’s dealings)
  • Helix Security International is a privately-owned corporation that is contracted by several nations and the United Nations council to provide various security services wherever nation militaries did not have the means to do so. From what I understand they took over a lot of Overwatch’s security functions including the administration of any penal facilities (including the facility where Doomfist was held and escaped from as seen in the Doomfist Origin Story short and Masquerade comic)

Zenyatta is an Omnic who is a member of the Shambali.

Source: Overwatch 2 - Heroes - Zenyatta

Details on Solider’s past relationships can be found in the recently released short story for Ana called “Bastet”.

I maintain an archive of most Lore related responses in the Overewatch Developer Post Archives here:

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3

So what if we did know? The general populace of that world doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean we the players should as well.

I should’ve worded this better. I meant as in, “how exactly did they find them and give them the details to what they’re working on”, as in, “They found Morrison and Reyes after a successful attack on an Omnic stronghold in New York and asked them to join their program”.

This one was more of a joke that Zen hasn’t gotten any involvement in Overwatch 1 aside from voicelines and a brief snippet in the OW2 trailer.

Overall, I just want to know more details about the past before OW2 releases. There are still so many unaswered questions that need a confirmation. Its been 4 years now, and I feel like we haven’t even moved an inch (and not in the “There is so much to explore it would take forever” good way) but more of a “we still know next to nothing about the finer details of this world”.

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What was this family that Reaper was stalking in reflections comic? I need to know.

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This is a very dangerous question to put in your thread if you don’t want it getting horribly derailed.

To answer it, I’m just gonna ask you a question:
Why is anyone gay?

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I honestly forgot about that comic. I’d assumed that it was either his family, or his wife (who remarried).

7

Really? Counter question: Why should he be straight?
Gay people exist. Why shouldn’t they exist in games?
Why does it need to be “important” to the story or whatever that Soldier is gay? It’s not like he had a coming out event. It was just a detail in his past. Just like Ana has/had a husband. How Widow had a husband and killed him. How Torb has a wife and several kids.

someone’s sexuality does not need to have a “purpose”. That’s just disgusting.

No, does Torb having a wife move the story forward?

It’s not important, but it’s called, “giving a character lore and a background”.

They didn’t announce it. It was mentioned in a comic.

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why am i gay? does it move my story forward? bla bla bla
its just a little nugget of info about the private life of the person. just like you know dva likes games and cheetos, or torb has a wife and kids. its just fun trivia, nothing more, nothing less.

to the rest of your questions:
i think most of those will actually be answered in the story mode of OW2 so we should just wait until then.

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9

To piss off homophobes and lgbt members simultaneously lol

Dunno why they picked him, especially since he was a launch hero yet they waited years…

10

I’m just the token gay of my family smh.
No other purpose.

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(Calmly) I’m pretty sure everything holds a purpose, if not, then it would be meaningless.

(Amusingly) Yes, it gave us Brigitte (for better or worse).

(Curiously) If it wasn’t important, wouldn’t that contradict the “giving a character lore and background”?

(Clarifying) When I said announce, it means in the way that it was in an official writing for the game (that makes it canon, which is an announcement). Probably could’ve worded it better but shrugs.

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No? Not every piece of lore needs to have a deeper meaning. There is a ton of background story for characters that is completely unimportant and will never be metioned again, nor play a part in the further story.

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That was my main concern. I don’t care what you do behind closed curtains (so long as it’s legal), but if you want representation, you got to do it properly. Announcing it a month after release, or simply making a new character with said qualities would’ve been fine, but they took the more troublesome path. This is a problem with a lot of companies nowadays (they just throw it in without regards for how it effects the story) its almost gotten to the point consumers have gotten tired of it (which isn’t a good thing for a business).

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14

but how DID it affect the story?
it was not the focal point of anything. it wasnt that we got a whole novel about him being gay or anything. it was just mentioned in like 1 frame of the whole comic. why is it even something to bat an eye at? why even think about it for more than a split second?

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15

I believe that’s considered terrible writing. Yes, there is some flavor text (that’s fine) but if you have multiple characters doing that, then you’re doing the opposite of Chekhov’s gun. An example of why this is bad can be seen in the following and more not listed:

  • RWBY
  • Gen: LOCK
  • Finn from Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
16

I think you will get some hate on that one, but i do see it as badly made story bit for him too. Not because he is gay, but how they introduced it. I think tracer had better introduction and it adds this “she have someone to fight for” narrative.
Soldier… yea they could at least say more about this Vincent guy there insted of “jack still have his photo there” and its just small talk about it. Story dont need to be made around it, but i feel like if they want to throw that in, they could at least add some more info there.

17

they can still do that in the future, nothing stops them

18

They could, but knowing how it goes, jack might not even be part of OW2 narrative at this point. So they could is loong stretch at this point.

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Like voicelines, or something. I’m not asking them to shout it from the rooftops, I just feel like it was sledgehammer with no further clarification. Aside from this topic, I haven’t seen many talk about the other ones (kinda makes me feel bad about them: especially the Zenyatta one).

20

Why would that make any difference. It would look even worse imo if they announce a new character and say they are gay, right away. THAT would look like a token representation.
We didn’t know much of Soldiers past before. Why does it matter that their past lover was a man instead of a woman? If they made Vincent into a woman, then would it have been criticised for not revealing the info before as well?

No, because straight is “normal”. Straight is the standard. By treating Soldier like any other character and revealing his sexuality as background info, it doesn’t make him being gay anything special, just how it should be.

If it is in a single book, sure. But in a whole universe, that gets updated again and again, it’s good to reveal unimportant info as well.
We don’t need to know the age of any character, yet we have it.

Hell, the whole “Reflections” comic was literally about a christmas fluff story.

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