We are ready to start a new journey in “2”. But are we sure we haven’t forgotten anything? or that you have never noticed something? In this post I want to try to give you some funny notions between easter eggs and hidden references that you may not know after 6 years of OW on its maps:
-
Almost all the streets of ilios (written in Greek) have as their name one of the twelve labors of Heracles in Greek mythology.
-
Zed’s garage on Route 66 has a chopper inside. This is a direct reference to the movie Pulp Fiction, when Butch says that this is not a motorcycle and that Zed is dead;
-
Watchpoint Gibraltar has a single geographical reference that really exists in the background of the sea: the Europa Point lighthouse, built in the 19th century;
-
At Numbani, the Chancellor hotel could refer to David Chancellor, a famous documentary photographer of the African savannah.
-
In Junkertown, among the scraps of the landfill you can see the text “Hope” camouflaged in the texture, a reference to the famous poster of Barack Obama of 2009. Maybe a scrapped Omnic had the dream of a coexistence between humans and omnic without mistrust?
-
the entrance to the Volskaya Industries (the red brick wall) is a parody of the Obukhov State Plant, a historic building of the metallurgical industry in St. Petersburg.
-
In the Dorado fountain, among the memorial writings there is this sentence: Hasta la noche más oscura cede ante el amanecer. this seems to be a reference to the movie the Dark Knight (2008) which in the Spanish dub says “La Noche es Más Oscura justo antes del Amanecer”.
-
Castillo is directly inspired by the San Miguel fort in Campeche, more precisely the walls with cannons around the cliff.
-
At one point, a crystal ball with the name Gray appeared at the ecobase antarctica. Its existence was completely unknown but a reddit user made it clear to us that it was a make-a-wish by Gray Braddock (his sad story here
https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/w6fdyh/grey_snowglobe_actual_meaning/) -
The checkpoint in the shrine in Nepal is inspired by the Siddhi Lakshmi Temple, in Bhaktapur.
-
The chateau guillard could hide as a clue the canonization that the countess of the legend of Junkenstein was an ancestor of Widowmaker. The manor is visible in the second Halloween comic, and in the shadows, as the countess rides into the night … is the gunslinger (van cassidy) chasing her. And in the “Mousquetaire” skin, on the rifle there is the same coat of arms of the Guillard family.
-
Black forest has a woodpecker in the trees … the same one that in the cinematic “the last bastion” started tapping on the trunk and scared Bastion.
-
Eichenwalde’s music shop is called “Die Zauberflöte” the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute” (1791);
-
The TVs of Ilios and Lijiang Tower have the “Samwise” logo. This is not just a parody of the “Samsung” brand, but it is literally a reference to one of the game’s developers: Samwise Didier
-
It is no coincidence that there is a cinema in the center of Busan: the city is famous for the Busan International Film Festival.
-
In the background of Sydney Harbor Arena you can see the facade of Luna Park Sydney. Have you never seen it? is the one that can be glimpsed in the Christmas comic “Rifelctions”, where Junkrat and Roadhog flee in a car with the money of a robbery.
-
The skin of Hanzo dedicated to Kanezaka challenge (Kyōgisha) has the writing “Kaichū” on the arm, it is a technical term of Kyudo, the art of the Japanese bow. Reinforcing this connection is the Hanamura map, which in its courtyards actually shows straw targets used in the Kyudo disciple.
-
In Paris we immediately recognize elements such as the eiffel tower or notre dame … but also the bridges of the Seine are faithful to the originals of the French capital: Pont d’Iéna (the only one directly connected to the Eiffel tower) and Pont de Bir-Hakeim, resting on the famous île aux Cygnes.
-
A red wrench can be found in Hammond’s chamber in Lunar Colonial Horizon. Knowing that the gorillas are still there, somewhere in the abandoned uninhabited moon base, this could be a reference to Bioshock: the red wrench is the first weapon that the protagonist finds to defend himself in the Rapture submarine base completely isolated in the chaos.
-
The Babylon Hotel in Hollywood is a great reference to the Hollywood book Babylon, in which the great scandals of the golden age of movie celebrities were told.
-
The sword of the Hanamura dojo probably belongs to an ancestor of the Shimada. We see a blade with the same handle in Genji’s Bushi skin.
-
In the Overwatch artbook you can see the first ideas of which statue to use for King’s Row. One of them was a parody of the statue on horseback of Charles I, located in Trafalgar Square in London
-
Necropolis includes a graphic error in one of Ana’s task force photos. In fact, TOrbjorn is seen with a human arm, but in the official origins video he already had the mechanical arm. This mistake was also noticed by Michael Chu (former OW screenwriter) at GDC 2017 “Thinking Globally: Building the Optimistic Future of Overwatch '”
-
Many of the environmental elements described in Ana Challenge’s Short Story Bastet are missing from the Temple of Anubis map (drones, mechanical camels, and air taxis). But they are visible in the first concept art of Temple of Anubis.
-
Ayutthaya, Petras and Oasis share the same type of analyzer drones. This may have something to do with the lore of Hamid Faisal, the Overwatch archaeologist mentioned not only in Petra, but also in Bastet.
-
Oasis has tons of historical references such as the Tower of Babel or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but have you ever noticed that the boats at the respawn points have a “Cyrus” logo? this is a reference to the cylinder of cirus, the most ancient artifact that recognizes the rights of humanity unthinkable in the ancient world of ancient Baghdad (iraq), such as the abolition of slavery, equality of races and respect for foreign cultures and religions.
-
Near the entrance to Blizzard World is a door with the number “131” and an entry that says “password?”. This is a double reference: to 1) the address of the Blizzard studios before the move in 1999 (131 Theory, Irvine); 2) at Disneyland Club 33, an extremely exclusive (and expensive) club where members have unlimited access to all the attractions of the world’s Disney parks and other special privileges (including drinking alcohol, the only place where it is possible inside the amusement park)
-
As an Italian user I can tell you that Rialto and Malevento have a stylistic error to describe Italian gastronomy: the total absence of espresso cups. it is true that Italy is also famous for its wines, but here we are also great drinkers of VERY short and concentrated coffee (see the Disney movie Luca to understand), Venice in particular is very famous for the coffees to be consumed on the tables of the historic port. Even the Colosseum map has this gastronomic mistake and does worse: it has a bar with a coffee machine but a total absence of coffee cups, just goblets of wine. And do you know what the irony of this mistake is? who in the Paris map rooms have perfectly modeled this custom forgotten in three Italian maps: espresso cups on the tables and coffee machines. An Italian tells you: coffee is not only a French culture, but also (if not above all) an Italian habit.
-
When Havana was presented as the Archives map, the newspaper article explaining the history of the distillery (Havana Sun) mentions the date 2060. Why is it important to note this? because this is the first time in the entire official Overwatch timeline (excluding incorrect translations in other countries) that a date after 2016 is specified. This is one of the very few current references that contextualize a precise date in OW without considering 2016 as “60 years in the future” with which OW was narrated by the developers.
I wrote a lot of stuff, but I hope these little notions have been quite “new” for the community after 6 years, whether they have been interesting or instructive. We greet OW1 with these notions that I hope have given you a little moment of amazement before OW2. If you have any other curiosities that you know or have always liked about the OW maps, I will be absolutely happy to read, remember or discover them. Ciao!
