Overwatch is Blizzard Entertainment’s newest game. It’s their first first-person shooter game, and I believe that they successfully launched/created the game. The game has a playfulness about it that makes it fun for beginners, yet still has a strong competitive spirit that makes it difficult for professionals. The game has a strong community and a loving history. The lore of Overwatch is unequal, and the imagination of Overwatch is outstanding. The characters and their backstories are amazing. Every character is unique, and they somehow give a reasonable and scientific explanation for everything that happens. For instance: A gorrila that talks, a man who can’t die, and woman who was brainwashed and tortured until her skin turn blue and she became an assassin. Every character in the show is unique, and we don’t have time to talk about them all, but we can go over my top five characters in Overwatch.
We’re actually going to have two different top five lists. The first list will be my favorite characters, from Overwatch, based off of lore. This means the story line and the characters history is very important for the list. The second list, will be off of game-play and who I enjoy to play most. The second list will be for a different time. Also note we don’t have time to go into a lot of detail. We’ll just be going over a brief part of their stories. With that in mind let’s start with the first list: My favorite characters in Overwatch, based off of lore.
Favorite Overwatch Characters Based Off of Lore
5. Winston
Winston is probably one of the most well-known characters in Overwatch. His character is lovable and friendly. He keeps the show in a hyped up mood. His history with the moon colony is interesting and fascinating. You create a bond with his father like figure, Harold Winston. Lunar Colony, is a colony on the moon that has a bunch of gorillas on it. This was to see if life could be preserved on the moon. The gorillas go on a rampage, though, and begin to attack the scientist on the colony. Harold Winston dies, but before he does, one gorilla who he has a special bond with, does not attack any of the scientist. This gorilla, would one day take the name Winston. Dr. Harold Winston is able to get (gorilla) Winston off of the colony in an escape pod. As I said, Harold Winston dies, from what we know of, but Winston lands at Gibraltar. Winston, as we know, would one day join/co-found Overwatch and would be a key player in taking down Doomfist, One of Talons leaders. Winston is a lovely character and he is a joy to learn about.
4. Widowmaker
Widowmaker has a crazy story, and it’s probably one of the saddest ones too. Before Widowmaker turned into the person she is now, her name was Amelie. She and her husband Gérard Lacroix, worked for Overwatch, but the elite group, known as Talon, wanted to take out Gérard. They failed though, and so they turned their eyes to his wife. Talon agents kidnapped Amelie, and tortured her. They brainwashed her into hating Overwatch and her husband. They then release her back to her husband, and she killed him while they were in bed. Filled with grief Widowmaker returned to Talon, and they performed experiments and test on her. They use drugs that slowed her heart down because Talon wanted a perfect killing machine. Someone who didn’t have any emotion. So the drugs continued to slow her heart down until it stopped. This resulted in her skin turning into a purple/blue color, and all her emotions were numb. The perfect killing machine. Widowmaker is a fascinating character who has a tragic story, and horrible future.
3. Reaper
Reaper is a bad**s character. His pursuit in killing, almost anything is so much fun to watch in the cinematic and great when reading the comics too. He’s a great character in the Overwatch lore, and a fun player in the game. How did Reaper become, who he was? Reaper, before he he was a villain, was known as Gabriel Reyes. Gabriel Reyes was the original leader of Overwatch during the Omnic Crisis. Gabriel was introduced to the soldier enhancement program, similar to Jack Morrison’s program, and Gabriel was refereed to as Soldier: 24. As time went on though, the UN eventually made Jack Morrison the leader of Overwatch. Reyes was looked at, at being to rough. Once best-friends, after this promotion Gabriel an Jack’s friendship would fall apart. Fast forwarding a couple of years, Reyes was experimented on by the Overwatch scientist Moira O’Deorain. She made it where his cells were constantly dying and regenerating all at once in a hyper-accelerated rate. This made it incredibly hard for him to die. Eventually that tension between Reyes and Morrison grew until they could barely stand each other. One day they fought and in the process caused an explosion at Overwatch headquarters. Everyone assumed that both had died in the process, but Reyes had survived thanks to the experiments of Moira. Reaper hates Jack Morrison with a rage that we could barely understand, and his rage for revenge and power is a fun story to watch play out.
2. Tracer
Tracer. The face of Overwatch, Tracer is one of the most cheerful and playful characters in Overwatch. She’s a hard character to play in the game, at-least for me, but her lore is one of my favorites. Lena Oxton (also known as Tracers, was the youngest person to ever join the Overwatch’s flight program. Lena Oxton was known for her fearless piloting skills. she was picked to test a teleportation air fighter. She agreed, and they started testing. The slipstream test is what it was called. During one of the test, the aircraft’s teleportation matrix malfunction and it disappeared. Lena Oxton was no where to be seen, but months later she showed up. Well, kinda. Her molecules were being disintegrated from time. She couldn’t control this and she could barely remain in physical as she tended to phase through objects. No one could figure out how to solve Tracer’s unique and terrifying problem, until Winston, our favorite talking gorilla, came. He created a device that would keep Tracer from phasing and let her control these new found powers. This device was called the Chronicle Accelerator. After this Tracer and Winston became life long friends. Tracer’s origin story is fascinating and fun to learn about for me. She was very close in becoming my number one spot, but I had to go with the on below instead.
1. Reinhardt
“HAMMER DOWN!” by Reinhardt
Reinhardt is my number one pick because he’s Reinhardt! I’m a big fan of knights: Honor, valor, dignity. Reinhardt is like a modern knight of the age. His decision to fight with honor and to destroy the forces of evil make him a character to remember. One of my favorite stories of Reinhardt is the cinematic that Blizzard Entertainment released during Blizzcon 2017. It shows Reinahrdt deciding to join Overwatch again after so many years. Briggite, daughter of Torbyorn, is trying to convince him not to join. He has a flash back. The battle of Einchenwald, where he and a few other Crusaders fight off an attack of omnics. They are holding the line and their leader Baldrich Von Alder is leading a charge, but Reinhardt, a young lad in this cinematic, is joyriding. Fighting omnics while leaving his men behind. He foolishly goes and attacks one the large omnics, who disables him fiercely. This omnic slices his eye, which is how we see he got his hurt eye in the future. His mentor/leader comes to the rescue, but in the process gets stabbed. Reinhardt is ready to go fight, but Baldrich Von Alder is not going to make it. He gives Reinhardt a coin with the Overwatch symbol. He wants Reinhardt to take his place, and to join Overwatch. This tear dropping moment in the flick is hard for everyone. Reinhardt unwillingly takes the coin, and his mentor says,
“Reinhardt, live with honor!”
Reinahrdt turns his back as he walks away and says,
“Die, with glory…Friend.”
Reinhardt escapes to save his men, while (name) holds off the omnics and has an epic fight scene. He dies heroically, and holds them off long enough for the air support to come and destroy the omnics. The scene ends, and Reinhardt has revisited the place where his mentor died. He looks at Briggite, and he explains he must go. Live with honor!
There you have it, my top five favorite characters from Overwatch. I have some honorable mentions too: Bastion, Briggite, Junkrat and Genji. I love these characters so much, and bastion I would consider equal to Winston. All these characters are so much fun. In lore and in game-play I enjoy these heroes of Overwatch. Thanks for reading guys and I’ll talk to you later! And remember
“LIVE WITH HONOR!”
Jmanthoughts 