I just watched this. Such a fun story telling! And we get more glimpses into Venture’s character.
SPOILER ALERTS:
We find out that ice cream is her favorite food, hence the skin she has. And we hear about this “Iram of the Pillars”, some kind of ancient ruins?
The most interesting part was when Venture discovered that Talon, Doomfist and Mauga were looking for a special artifact. Could it be connected to the Iram of the Pillars?
The other interesting part was Sombra and how she wanted Venture to help her with finding something. They must all be looking for the same object. I wonder if we will get some more insight on this mysterious object in Season 12…
frankly it seems to me just further confirmation that all their ice cream contents were supposed to be standard but instead they decided to monetize them. 
I actually have doubts about this dialogue. It could actually refer to the “Iram of the Pillars”, a lost city of the Koran, but the fact that it referred to street food and “choice” made me think for a moment of a mistake referring to the “Five Pillars of Islam”, fundamental practices of the Koran that include Ramadan, so fasting until the evening for maybe one of Venture’s colleagues. It’s just a supposition of mine, since both terms are very similar but the analogy with the food of the second one seemed quite pertinent to me. I should see some comparisons with other international translations. 
Can I be brutally honest? I didn’t really like this comic. I mean… it’s “weak” of really new information.
- Talon is searching for things among the artifacts of Ilios? we already knew that since OW1, in some old voice lines of Athena in Ilios;
- Venture defends the artifacts? we already knew that and it doesn’t really show any kind of new information about which artifact he should defend from the talon. It doesn’t really add anything new to Venture (at least for me);
- Sombra says she knows things without saying them and leaves? is this really new?
The voice actress is very good at expressing Venture’s character… but I still see a story that is too intentionally vague. and ok, maybe we want to consider it as a teaser for season 12 for possible more info on the Anubis map? perfect… but then don’t spam me teasers of Venture and Anubis since season 10 in which literally nothing is said about them, it was a bad clickbait of things that in the end were not shown (as well as the presence of highlights and emoting that came later, and not at the debut of Venture).
it’s yet another vague information, we have no real info on how the story should continue or why we are interested in archaeology specifically with Talon’s objectives in a world that has as its subject Anubis not intended as a millenary Egyptian deity but as an AI developed by Humanity in the future of Overwatch. Really, I love the concept of the archaeologist, but by now they should get to create connections a little more serious than spamming new story openings without a closure. 
sorry for the outburst, but it is absolutely necessary to stop this bad habit on the part of story developers. 
1 Like
I understand your frustrations. There seems to be little info about the lore in this short story. If anything, it expands on Venture’s personality and motivations more than anything.
Im not sure what you meant by “standard” ice cream. Do you mean having Venture’s ice cream skin as a default option instead of a gold-coin purchase?
The “Iram of the Pillars” was really interesting. I did a quick search and they seem to be a lost city from the Quran, as you mentioned. Makes sense that Venture is searching for a lost city. What better way to try to find it than burrowing underground!
But yeah, as you mentioned, the short story is mostly just a bunch of teasers of things to come with a little dash (little pun there) of some hero lore. Gotta take what we can get, i guess 
Exactly. I’m almost sure that the epic skin (the only one really new in terms of modelling) was actually part of the standard content that from Mauga onwards we saw disappear in favor of the shop and coins.
I partially disagree with this kind of feeling. if I want to know the personality of an Overwatch hero, the voicelines or the origin story videos (or in the case of venture, the short video of their story) will do the trick.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many people are returning to appreciate this comic because it is accompanied by the voice of Rodriguez, who is very good anyway. But without this type of characterization… it is “empty” in the concrete terms of the lore. In fact, I could add further details that do not go into this story to describe how much it is wasted as narrative space in my opinion:
- The Wayfinders: it could have been a good opportunity to mention them even just the names of those who are part of it, for example “faisal (Dr. Fais, the archaeologist mentioned in Bastet) will not be happy with this”. Or small real mentions of why they should care about how Venture uses their drill, since it is also a device that shoots bullets even though in the end of the comic he implies that they would not be happy with this use). drill that we don’t actually see used in a real fight with mauga, right?
;
- it’s fine to go back to mentioning that Talon is looking for something, we knew it from Athena in OW1 and in the animated video of Venture
… but now we had to say what specifically 
. Talon’s soldiers would never say that then have Mauga or Sombra say it… at least a hint about its use. or (and here is seriously a stupid move by the developers and the entire marketing department of Blizzard)… have another media of the game answer this question as soon as possible. Spamming me that Talon is looking for an artifact had to be solved quickly or by the end of the season in which you proposed this story. Otherwise people will be annoyed by what in fact is yet another open and unanswered information that is added to the other already open in the past. it’s incredible that after 8 years we still have this kind of mistakes on how to keep the focus on the lore, we shouldn’t be surprised if people are annoyed by the fact that it never moves forward 
it’s a bad hype menagement, totally;
- There’s also a serious logical problem in proposing Sombra: what is she doing, exactly? she’s literally everywhere since forever, and always with half answers without a real conclusion. she’s with widowmaker to attack zenyatta in the cliffhanger seen in invasion, she’s with mauga and reaper after the attack on Gotheborg to steal a core of the null sector shuttle, now she’s here spamming interest in Venture… can we honestly note that they’re spamming Sombra everywhere simply because they always want the “do you want to know it?
” element rather than giving clear answers? 
we’ve always known it, Sombra knows everything and is mysterious, but now we can also stop opening other plots about her while others are open;
I have nothing against Venture’s personality, 
we understood that they have a lot of communicative potentialn, nice… but we have to stop wasting these narrative opportunities with eternal coming soon or half answers in too much new questions. especially at a time when we are being denied any real official news about the future of PVE, it’s not fair. we are no longer in 2016 where the main interest was only to know the protagonists: now it’s time to connect the game’s information well, old and new.
1 Like
Still no origin story tho 
1 Like