Overwatch

"A new hope arose, an elite international task force, charge with ending the war and restoring liberty for all nations. - Overwatch. Soldiers, scientists, adventurers, oddities. Guardians who secure global peace for a generation. Under its steadfast protection the world recovered and today, though its watch has ended, its soaring ideals of freedom and quality will never be forgotten."

Overwatch is a multiplayer First Person Shooter developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Unveiled at BlizzCon 2014, the game emphasizes cooperative gameplay using a cast of various "heroes," each with their own abilities and roles within a team. The game entered closed beta in North America and Europe in October 2015, with plans to bring the beta to Asia at a later date. The final closed beta weekend began in April 2016 and primarily served as a stress test for Overwatch's servers, lasting 36 hours. The game was released for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One worldwide in May 2016. Though a Blizzard Battle.Net account is required to answer the call and join Overwatch.

Main Play Modes
 * Quick Play


 * Competitive Play


 * Play vs AI


 * Tutorial


 * Practice Range


 * Custom

The video game also became recognized as an eSport and Blizzard helps to fund and produce the professional league players as part of the Overwatch League.

For manageability, Overwatch has separate pages for tropes in these categories, other than the ones from the top pages:

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 * Audience: The audiences' reactions to their beloved game.
 * Supplemental Material, for tropes found in the comic books, shorts, and Tweets.
 * Retcon, for the material that's been retcon out of the lore.


 * 24-Hour News Networks: In universe. Atlas News which provides the news to the world via televised services, newspapers, and holograms.
 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot: What sparked the "Omnic Crisis" and what still drives animosity between humans and Omnics.
 * All There in the Manual: At least for now, much of the plot, character backgrounds and overall backstory can be found in various media, including comics and animated trailers instead in the game itself.
 * And Now for Something Completely Different: A meta-example as this is Blizzard's first foray into the genre and a different beast from either World of Warcraft or Heroes of the Storm.
 * And Your Reward Is Clothes: After completing missions or opening the loot boxes will result with getting new skins.
 * Animal Motifs:
 * The Ashe family heirloom is the viper.
 * Animal Talk: Winston can apparently understand what Hammond says, this can be a Level 4 of the Sliding Scale of Animal Communication.
 * Animesque: In addition to Pixar's work, anime is another major influence.
 * Awesome Anachronistic Apparel/Born in the Wrong Century: Some characters would look too out of place in another time period altogether and still look badass.
 * Reinhardt composes and even dresses himself like the knights of yore to the point of being a German version of Don Quixote.
 * McCree is very much a Spaghetti Western character thrown into the future. An alternate outfit however updates his look slightly to that of a 1930s pulp hero ala The Shadow.
 * Hanzo's appearance is based on feudal Japanese attire with some futuristic touches.
 * One of Widowmaker's alternate outfits makes her look like a Belle Epoque-era soldier.
 * Back From the Dead: Mercy's ultimate power is to revive nearby downed teammates, bringing them back into the fight instantly.
 * Badass Grandpa: Reinhardt and Soldier: 76 are old enough to be this, being among the original founding members of Overwatch.
 * Bio Augmentation: Characters, like Reaper, Moira, and others had their genetics getting altered and highten.
 * Bizarrchitecture: Utopaea. This city was made of hard light technology.
 * Broken Hero:
 * Soldier: 76, one of the original members of Overwatch went from being a Captain America-style paragon to becoming a jaded if still upright Anti-Hero following the organization's downfall.
 * Ana, another original member of Overwatch, was forced to confront the toll of the lives she took in her long career by her later years.
 * Bulungi: Averted with Numbani, which is described as a First-World African country where humans and Omnics coexist relatively peacefully.
 * Captain Patriotic: Downplayed with Fahrah, who's fighting to protect her homeland of Egypt, and Soldier: 76, who was very much a Captain America Expy in his prime before becoming more like The Punisher.
 * Character Celebrity Endorsement: An in universe example, Hana Song/D.Va has her face, her bunny logo, and whatnot stamp on South Korean ramen cups, sodas, and etc.
 * Christmas Episode: The Tracer: Reflections comic, it even shows some of the Overwatch and Talon members celebrating Christmas and other winter holidays with love ones.
 * Cold Sniper: Subverted with Ana. She's deathly professional at her specialty, but the toll of the lives she's taken over the years still weighs heavily on her, as much as she believes it's for making the world safer.
 * Cool Old Lady: Ana, Fahrah's mother, is still quite the badass sniper even in her old age.
 * Conspiracy: It's the mysterious group that Sombra found, she gave them that nickname,
 * Cosmopolitan Council: Talon has some pretty influential members, like Reaper, Sanjay, Doomfist.
 * Crap Saccharine World: While the future world shown in Overwatch is rather colorful, hopeful and Pixar-ish, it still takes place in the wake of a bloody Robot War and there's still a lot of murky seediness beneath the surface. Not to mention much of Australia being reduced to an irradiated mess and parts of Germany being lawless.
 * Cosmic Forces Trio: Ana (The Preserver), Reaper (The Destroyer), and Soldier: 76 (The Creator).
 * Crossover: Guys like Tracer, Ana, Hanzo, and even Katya Volskaya appears in "Heroes of the Storm." This doubles the crossover.
 * Cursed with Awesome: Tracer clearly didn't like her Unstuck in Time predicament, at least until Winston found a way to help her control it.
 * Dark Action Girl: Widowmaker.
 * Dark and Troubled Past: Bastion once fought in the Omnic Crisis as a frontline Mook. Now he's very much the last known model of his kind that's still functioning.
 * Death World: Australia, with the exception of major regions like Sydney, became even more of one, the Outback turning into an irradiated Mad Max-esque wasteland following an uprising.
 * Defector From Decadence
 * Not exactly "decadence" per se, but Zenyatta broke from his fellow Omnic monks, arguing that he would much more good in the world rather than being aloof and secluded from it.
 * Both Hanzo and Genji were once part of the Shimada Clan, an old but powerful Yakuza organization.
 * Depopulation Bomb: What's left of the Outback residents, they called themselves "Junkers."
 * Dueling Games: With both recent releases like Battleborn and established online mainstays like Team Fortress 2.
 * Eagle Land: The Hollywood and Route 66 maps are very blatant slices of Americana, the latter even having a futuristic semi-truck in red, white and blue.
 * Easter Egg: If one enters the Konami Code in the main Overwatch website, D.Va will recite it and a surprise will happen.
 * McCree's line of "You seem familiar, have I killed you before?" Is one huge reference to Captain Jack Sparrow asking "You seem familiar. Have I threatened you before?"
 * The checkpoint in Dorado had some nearby tents that have heart shape designs that are similar to the Kingdom Hearts.
 * One of the games in the arcade had Super Siege Mode 3, which is Metal Slug meets Star Craft.
 * The Hollywood map has Goldshire Pictures, Goldshire Studios, and Goldshire Way, which are references to an Elwynn Forest town.
 * Symmetra quips "This cake is a lie... Or is it?"
 * Elites Are More Glamorous: Blackwatch and they have the uniforms and the berets to prove it.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: B.O.B, just B.O.B.
 * Esports
 * Experience Points: These are earned by joining matches, quick plays, opening loot boxes, and even practicing against AI bots will increase a player's level, even unlocking rewards, like Highlight Intros.
 * Expy:
 * Ana can be described as a more benevolent Big Boss with a mix of Sniper Wolf.
 * Soldier: 76 is in a sense, a Darker and Edgier Captain America.
 * BlizzardWorld's a parody of Disneyworld, but with Blizzard Entertainment attractions.
 * Parts of Australia became a Mad Max-like desert, were the strongest survive.
 * Face Heel Turn: It's strongly implied that at least some members of the terrorist Talon organization were once part of the original Overwatch's covert-ops "Blackwatch" who went rogue. Reaper as well is this, given how he was once one of the founding members of Overwatch.
 * Widowmaker, formerly known as Amélie Lacroix, was the wife of an Overwatch operative before being brainwashed by Talon into becoming a living weapon and its most lethal assassin.
 * Fantastic Racism: In addition to existing racism, there's the animosity between humans and Omnics, with countries responding to the issue in various ways. Some of the characters are also shown having some anti-Omnic sentiments for various reasons. It's also mentioned that there are terrorists and extremists of both the human and Omnic variety who actively want another full-blown Robot War just to wipe the other out.
 * Fictional Documents: The Venice Memorandum Declassification documents
 * Hello: The playerable characters all have a "Hello" gesture.
 * Gamer Chick: D.Va was a professional gamer before becoming a Mini-Mecha ace pilot. Even after being said Mini-Mecha pilot, she continued being one, even becoming an idol in South Korea in the process.
 * Game Over: Losing a round will result in a "Defeat" card popping out.
 * Gang-Bangers: The Los Muertos,
 * Gangster War: When the Deadlock Gang's prominence rose, this put them against the other American Southwest's criminal organizations. This resulted in often violent encounters.
 * Generic Graffiti: The sprays that gamers uses in gameplay modes.
 * Generation Xerox: Fahrah is the daughter of one of the founding members of Overwatch, Ana. Indeed, young Ana is even shown as looking very much like her daughter.
 * Ghost City: The entire Outback became this, after an Australian omnium's fusion core got detonated during an attack.
 * Glorious Mother Russia: The Russians are shown to be proud of having faced down Omnic threats despite massive odds. Subsequently, the Volskaya Industries map is a celebration of all things Russian.
 * Godzilla Threshold: In order to combat the giant rogue Omnic that periodically tries to destroy South Korea, the authorities had to resort to filling up the Mini-Mecha ranks with professional gamers just to get some edge.
 * Great Offscreen War: The "Omnic Crisis" happened several years before the game takes place. But the aftermath continues to linger on.
 * Gold Makes Everything Shiny: The weapon skins consist primarily of gold and some other metals.
 * Going Mobile: Overwatch has a few mobile apps, like the Overwatch League, so gamers can keep up and root for their favorite teams.
 * Halloween Episode: When Halloween draws near, Overwatch gets some pretty festive skins for the game. Plus, the comics also fits with the holiday spirit, like Junkenstein and Halloween Terror.
 * Harmless Freezing: Played straight, with Mei freezing herself just to heal or freezing her opponents with her Endothermic Blaster.
 * Heroes with Bad Publicity: This trope became a reality to both Overwatch and Blackwatch agents, when both the international public and governments decided to dump them to the point of calling them criminals. But this won't stop the former members from saving the day.
 * Human Popsicle: The Watchpoint: Antarctica science crew when they entered and activated their cryo pods.
 * Humongous Mecha: The Russian response to the "Omnic Crisis" was to mass-produce manned giant robots to fight the threat, like South Korea's Mini-Mecha, they proved successful.
 * I Was Quite a Looker: Soldier: 76 and Ana were quite lookers indeed back in the founding days of Overwatch.
 * I Call It Vera: MEKA's mechs all have names: Beast, King, Mastermind, Tokki, and La Princesse Sereine.
 * Killer App: Overwatch is the reason to make a Blizzard Battle.Net account and buy the game.
 * Killer Space Gorillas: The Horizon Lunar Colony gorillas (Save Winston) pulled a Planet of the Apes: Revolted against the human scientists, killed them, and claim the colony as their own.
 * Light Is Good: Mercy, whose general appearance is akin to an angel.
 * Lighter and Softer: Compared to Blizzard's other works.
 * Like Mother Like Daughter: Subverted. It's revealed that Ana never wanted her daughter Fahrah to join Overwatch as she hoped to spare her from having to confront the horrors of war.
 * Limit Break: All the characters have each of their individual limit breaks, which are called "Ultimates." That can be activated after filling up a gauge.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: The game first started with 12 characters, but they keep introducing a new playable hero.
 * There's more characters, including the ones from the comics and other expanded lore.
 * Loot Boxes
 * Macross Missile Massacre: Fahrah's ultimate power is this.
 * Mayincatec: The Mexico map is a blend of Spanish and Mesoamerican motifs.
 * Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: By and large, much of the universe and gameplay mechanics have a science fiction tinge to them. On the other hand, Genji and Hanzo can summon spirit dragons as their ultimate power.
 * Mean Brit: Averted with Tracer, who's one of the most upbeat and friendly among the cast.
 * Mecha-Mooks: Bastion's one that gained a conscience.
 * Mega Corp: Vishkar Corporation, an influential multinational firm based in southern India. It's also far murkier than its PR would have one believe.
 * Mini-Mecha: South Korea invested in having whole divisions of these due to recurrent attacks from a large Omnic. D.Va, who was recruited into such divisions by the government before joining Overwatch, pilots one of them.
 * Mood Whiplash: Some of the trailers and backstory can come across as this.
 * Multinational Team: Overwatch, both in its original "peacekeeper" state and "current" form, is comprised of characters from various countries, along with a sentient ape and robots.
 * National Stereotypes: Subverted. The designs and personalities of the various characters show their cultural/national heritage, but in rather peculiar ways.
 * Nebulous Evil Organisation: Talon. They even attack both civilians and military.
 * Ninja: The Shimada Clan.
 * Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot:
 * The Omnic Zenyatta is a Buddhist-style robot monk.
 * Genji meanwhile is a cyborg ninja not unlike Raiden, though he actually is Japanese.
 * Not Quite Dead: As it turns out, Ana, who was thought to have been killed at some point in the past, is still very much alive and still fighting the good fight.
 * Noble Bigot: Some, like Torbjörn tend to view Omnics lowly, in part due to the Robot War decades earlier, even if they treat their Omnic peers with at least some respect.
 * Norse by Norsewest: Torbjörn, a very talented engineer responsible for a good deal of Overwatch's technology, is Swedish.
 * Older Than They Look:
 * Both Mercy and Mei, despite their rather youthful appearance are old enough to have been in the original Overwatch for quite some time. In Mercy's case, she even remembers her parents' deaths during the "Omnic Crisis" but looks as if she's barely aged a day. While for Mei, she was cryogenically frozen.
 * Tracer is also this, in part due to her being Unstuck in Time.
 * Origin Episodes: "Character X" Origin Story episodes serves as these.
 * Peace Conference: Elizabeth Ashe called the leaders of the rival Southwestern gangs for this. And.
 * Phony Newscast: A Moment in Crime Special Report: "The Junkers"
 * Play the Game, Skip the Story: Many gamers do this with Overwatch, not paying attention to the comics and the rest of the expanded universe.
 * Though it can be because they are unaware of the expanded lore's existance.
 * Poirot Speak: Various characters occasionally slide into their native languages.
 * Powered Armor: The German response to the "Omnic Crisis" involved creating highly advanced "Crusader armor" in the image of medieval knights, the same sort used by Reinhardt.
 * Power Glows: When a character's ultimate gauge is powered up, it glows as though it's border is on fire. That's the signal to unleash.
 * Ragnarok Proofing: Bring a military-model Omnic, Bastion is still rather sturdy even after decades without proper maintenance.
 * Retro Universe: The world of Overwatch is a blend of past, present and futuristic elements.
 * Reluctant Hero: McCree was originally this, being an outlaw who was "recruited" into Overwatch in exchange for avoiding prison. Before long however, he came to genuinely become heroic such that even after Overwatch's downfall he continued fighting the good fight.
 * Reluctant Warrior:
 * Mercy, who hails from Switzerland, is much more suited to healing people than killing them. On the other hand, she's not that afraid to take out enemies with a pistol if it means saving others.
 * Mei, from China, is far more interested in doing science and environmental work than going into combat.
 * Bastion, being a surviving, sentient Mecha Mook left over from the "Omnic Crisis" who'd rather be left alone in peace rather than fight.
 * Ana, from Egypt, became this in her later years. Despite the burden of the many lives she took in her career as a sniper, she nonetheless continues the fight as she still believes it's the right thing to do.
 * Revolvers Are Just Better: McCree's weapon of choice would make the Man With No Name proud.
 * Ridiculously Cute Critter: Pachimari, Ganymede, Hammond, and yachemon.
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Soldier: 76 has been spending the years since Overwatch's downfall seeking vengeance for what brought the organization down.
 * Robot War: The "Omnic Crisis," when rogue sentient AI waged a bloody war against humanity. The game itself is set as a second one is brewing.
 * Rule 34: Fan artists went wild drawing porn of the characters...Even the hamster!
 * Slightly averted, Blizzard did a ceased and desist on these family unfriendly fan art sites. As if that's gonna stop the NSFW artists.
 * Russian Guy Suffers Most: Russia, where Zarya hails from, is mentioned as in the midst of another Omnic conflict; it doesn't help that according to the lore, the Russians were among the first to be attacked and largely forced to fight them alone. And the international community is hesitant to send aid, which is also what helps persuade Winston that Overwatch must be reactivated.
 * Same Sex Triplets: Zeke, Terran, and P.T. of the Deadlock gang.
 * Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right:
 * This is what ultimately spurs the informal reactivation of Overwatch, especially as the world finds itself in need of heroes once more.
 * Lucio, a Brazilian musician, used to work for the Vishkar Corporation before realizing what the Mega Corp intended to do with a favela, becoming a freedom-fighter in the process.
 * Scavenger World: The Junkers scavenged whatever is left of omnium and formed a cutthroat society around it.
 * Shell-Shocked Veteran:
 * Ana is revealed to be this, and is still haunted by the lives she's taken over the years.
 * Even Bastion is shown to have the Omnic equivalent of PTSD, having flashbacks to the brutal battles in Germany.
 * Shout Out: In one of the old Overwatch trailers, one of the brothers is wearing a hoodie for Rainer's Raiders.
 * One of Hanzo's customizable lines is "I choose you, Spirit Dragon."
 * Sixth Ranger: Those who answered Winston's Recall message, whether they're the from the original group (i.e. Torbjörn Lindholm) or new comers entirely (i.e. Genji Shimada).
 * An in real life examples, starting with Ana, Blizzard keeps expanding the Hero roster.
 * Space Base: Winston, a sentient gorilla, was raised in a Lunar research base by his human scientist father.
 * Spiritual Licensee: The game can be described as The Incredibles meets The Avengers, with a dash of Deus Ex in for good measure.
 * Start My Own: O'Deorain and other like-minded scientists founded the city of Oasis.
 * Stop Motion: Trace and Bake.
 * Student and Master Team: Reinhardt Wihelm and his squire/student, Brigitte.
 * Succession Crisis: Who will be the successor of the Shimada clan now since both Hanzo and Genji left?
 * Super Smoke: Reaper's "wraith form."
 * Super Soldier: Soldier: 76 was part of an American program to make these in response to the "Omnic Crisis."
 * Team Dad: Soldier: 76 used to be this for the old Overwatch, though he still can't shake it off.
 * Team Mom: Mercy and Ana tend to be portrayed as this.
 * Theme Park Version: Downplayed, but many of the maps showcase various parts of the world in a way that's both traditional and peculiar.
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Both Junkrat and Roadhog are this in spades.
 * Thrown Out the Airlock: The Horizon Lunar Colony's scientists were tricked into troubleshooting airlock E-35, were they vetted out into the moon's surface to die.
 * Turned Against Their Masters: The Omnics that went rogue and causing the Omnic Crisis are doing this.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The game is set at some point in the not-too distant future, though enough time has passed that an A.I. uprising called the "Omnic Crisis" has already happened.
 * Two Guys and a Girl: Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, and Ana.
 * Unstuck in Time: Tracer. Thanks to an experimental test flight Gone Horribly Wrong, she suffers from "chronal disassociation," detaching her from the timestream. This would have made her a "living ghost" forever jumping through time if not for Winston creating a device that allows her to not only be anchored in the present, but also control her newfound abilities.
 * United Nations: Overwatch was originally established as an U.N. peacekeeping task force which quickly became associated with heroes before it was eventually disbanded.
 * Vigilante Man: Many Overwatch operatives became this when the United Nations and other governments made the Overwatch program disband.
 * Vive La Revolution: Some of the test subject gorillas overthrew the scientists of the Horizon Lunar Colony.
 * We ARE Struggling Together: Infighting, complacency and simmering tensions within the "original" Overwatch were what helped doom it.
 * What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: The lore for Overwatch can become pretty dark for a game with characters that wouldn't look out of place in a Pixar.
 * Yakuza: The Shimada Clan, an old ninja family, are also one of the more powerful Japanese crime syndicates.
 * You Said You Would Let Them Go: Vishkar Corporation wanted to develop the city were Lúcio and his love ones lived in, so the company promised them that this will improved their lives, instead, Vishkar imposed draconian controls on the residents of the Rio de Janeiro city.