The game fundamentally makes no sense, why can Soldier and Reaper so often end up on the same team?
They wouldn’t have used it very well anyway as the OW writers have a HUGE problem with dialogue.
It doesn’t matter than Hammond can’t speak enough to have detailed conversations as almost all the dialogue the writers make is just not worth it, the writers make interesting characters and back stories but when they interact with each other it can’t walk the fine line between boring and cringe.
Dialogue is the hardest thing to write.
Which is why script writers almost entirely focus on writing dialogue, the what to do is far easier.
The OW writers have done far better when they’ve had LESS character interaction and focused on character’s ACTIONS, their monologues, their focus on objectives, their reaction to events but not to people. The Last Bastion is easily the best film they made as there’s no dialogue, just non-verbal interactions.
So Hammond is playing to their strengths, another character whose role is to DO, not to talk.
Dialogue is a huge problem as when two people talk, their words cut deep to their core motivations, their past history, future intentions. I think OW writers have a fundamental inability to progress on this as nothing is or can be established, their dialogue can never go anywhere.
Characters who have nothing to say fit really well in OW.
The game also can’t just use dialogue to be funny and irreverant. TF2 could get away with lack of story as most of the dialogue was just trying to be funny but OW seems to be strangely averse to trying to be light and whimsical. Possibly to deliberately distinguish themselves from TF2 but I think it would have been better if they had just developed their own distinct brand of humour.
