I was reading through the timeline noted in Winston’s desk ‘emails’ when I realized that one date in particular seems to be throwing the rest of them off.
On the ‘email’, it states that the Null Sector Uprising happened 10 years ago. However, when the “Uprising” mission trailer dropped, it states in the beginning of the video that the event took place 7 years ago.
The only way I can think to justify this gap in the timeline is to consider each date range as a product of each Overwatch game. However, that would mean that three years have passed between Winston’s Recall and the Paris Invasion. That doesn’t seem right.
In addition, the ‘Lore Desk timeline email’ states that in the present day, the Null Sector invasion started in Paris. However…in the beginning of Recall, Winston is watching a news program about the second omnic crisis in Russia. Should we then assume that the second omnic crisis was Null Sector all along but the new Overwatch doesn’t know it? Or is there another faction of omnics behind the second crisis that aren’t aligned with Ramattra, perhaps something to do with the Russian omnium?
If I remember correctly, Overwatch 2 actually takes place a few years after Overwatch 1, the gap is where many of the comics and short stories takes place.
Oh really! Hmm…do you happen to know where you remember that from?
Based on the interactions and current timeline, I assumed that not much time at all had passed…perhaps a year and a half at most. But if there’s a source mentioning a few years, I would love to see it!!
that’s the thing, if i remember it was said several times that the story directly (within a few months) follows the recall.
if it is suddenly said that we are now suddenly three years further, what happened in the three years? Why did Winston initiate the recall back then and almost nobody reacted to it? only three years later? doesn’t make any sense.
Unfortunately, this is a problem that will probably always be an essential part of the lore. Illogic and temporal inconsistency.
The Mondatta assassination and the recall are on the same day and the Codex says the assassination was years ago.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/yejjo1/overwatch_timeline_of_major_events_2022/
I read it on this overwatch timeline reddit post, but it seems it only counts a single year after recall which is my bad. I guess it really is a retcon?
Jeff Kaplan in an interview at blizzcon 2019 confirmed that the events of Zero Hour occurred 1 year after Winston’s recall. such a long period of time was already questionable enough for a global emergency visibly documented on television broadcasts around the world. But there are two pieces of info that significantly change this narrative… lengthening Winston’s waiting time from the recall:
- The e-mail / timeline indicating the uprising event as having occurred 10 years ago instead of 7 as was always said in the OW1 lore;
- In the information sheet of the Shambali, Mondatta’s death would have occurred “a few years ago”, and we know perfectly well that london calling made the Recall and Alive 100% canonical on the same day / period;
this makes Winston’s waiting time increasingly implausible… and the choices the other heroes make in answering the call. Especially the lore of Reinhardt who had always agreed to answer the call and maybe the only excuse he had was to coach Brigitte before returning.
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