#This character could possibly be in Overwatch as a new hero

[arclundarchivist]

Reading through the Heroes Ascension Book, and here’s the stuff I found that seemed like set up for future, likely sidelined story content :/

But there are also hints for stuff that could show up in the main blame through interactions and some possible new characters.

Rebuilding Ruins: Symmetra/Lifeweaver Story

• ⁠Lifeweaver is living at the Atlantic Arcology, which comes under attack by Null Sector, which could have been a major problem due to their “guests”.

• ⁠Symmetra is working against negative influences inside Vishkar, but how far that will get her is up in the air and Lifeweaver invites her to join him at the Arcology as a member of the “Collective”, an altruistic group of scientists and intellectuals.

Unity: Orisa/Efi Story

• ⁠Numbani comes under assault by Null Sector, with Humans defending their Omnic neighbors much more openly than other places.

• ⁠Efi creates a bunch of small drones to help defend Numbani, so that Orisa and her can leave Numbani to help people.

• ⁠Story ends with the pair planning on setting out immediately, and takes place around the same time as the Rio Mission, Efi may be seeking out Overwatch.

Luck of the Draw: Ashe Story

• ⁠Ashe and the Deadlocks were attempting to break into the Las Vegas criminal underground.

• ⁠Ashe nearly died defending BOB, who in turn is almost taken captive by Null Sector.

• ⁠It confirmed damaging or removing the “helmets” on an Omnic causes them to have a “seizure” and die. (What the fuck Rammatra?)

A Friendly Rivalry: Junkers Story.

• ⁠Junker Queen almost had Roadhog and Junkrat executed.

• ⁠Junkrat reveals his secret treasure: A giant airship stored within the last remnants of the Omnium beneath Junkertown. Queen and Hammond begin making plans to get it airborne again.

Thoughtless Gods: Hammond Story (And boy these is a lot of worldbuilding in this one)

• ⁠Direct sequel to the previous story.

• ⁠Reveals that Omnics remaining in the Outback are oddly feral and corrupted in some fashion, cannibalizing each other for parts and actively “hunting” Junkers. Hammond has no idea what caused this.

• ⁠Hammond remembers his time being experimented on the Moon Colony, he is apparently “older” than Winston has he gained awareness before hand, and sort of became a “big brother” to Winston.

• ⁠The apes and Hammond were not the first experiments. There were failures, apparently some other kind of animals, that are still up on the Moonbase. Hammond calls them “wrong”.

• ⁠The apes have a whole society, are building weapons and armor and may be constructing a whole new building/device on the Colony.

• ⁠Possible hints at the Mars Colony.

• ⁠Two apes are named. Oscar, unknown, and Dyson, a large, cruel Orangutan - feels like a character set up.

Where Honor Lives: Hanzo/Kiriko Story

• ⁠Shimada weaponry have “special energy tech”, throws more confusion on the “is this magic” question surrounding the Japanese characters abilities. The Hashimoto are attempting to copy the designs but “they can’t manifest the proper power”. (This seems to be due to Kiriko’s father purposefully give them shoddy work but they don’t know that).

• ⁠The Hashimoto can work with impunity in Tokyo, and are causing trouble even with Null Sector literally on the horizon.

• ⁠Hanzo and Kiriko’s interactions again confuse the whole age gap, because he treats her as if she was a tween when he was a teen.

• ⁠Hanzo joins Kiriko in protecting Kanezaka from the invasion.

Lost Ghosts: Soldier/Ana Story

• ⁠Ana splits from Jack after learning he’s been sitting on the list of Overwatch agent names using it to track Talon movements and not warning the targets. She isn’t joining Overwatch but is going to be trying to protect remaining Agents who haven’t answered the Recall but are not yet dead to Talon.

• ⁠We meet another old Overwatch agent Mirembe, who is thinking about answering the Recall, I think she’s the woman that was standing in the group photo from Ana’s trailer.

• ⁠Another, Kimiko, is named.

Lucky Man: Soldier/Sombra Story

• ⁠Sombra has been leaking info to Soldier, because she believes the cabal she is after is also to blame for that happened in Zurich.

• ⁠Jack has been hunting Talon as a proxy because he never truly believed they took down the HQ. He also doesn’t believe Reyes knew what was going to happen.

• ⁠Sombra and Jack seem to be set up to continue working together, and Jack is headed to Oasis hunting for more clues on the Cabal.

[half-developed-frontal-lobe]

My predictions and analysis on the new Hero in Overwatch →

Also Lore on Oasis, Moira, and the hero lore itself.

Wayfinders and Vanadium

The Wayfinders find a vein of an unknown vanadium isotope in Petra. One that isn't decaying in the natural environment.

I actually looked around Petra at one point didn't find anything regarding the isotope itself, so maybe they really aren't interested.

Which is ironic because Venture has a pet rock, Rosetta, with similar looking crystals on its head, a violet colored crystal poking out at the top.

This also brings some insight to what's being used. What we should be expecting from this experiment. It may also explain why Talon is going around Wayfinder dig sites, if substances like these can be found.

Vanadium is known as a steel additive. You mix it with other metals to strengthen tools, armor, weapons, etc, and makes them resistant to corrosion and rusting.

It's incredibly durable when mixed with a different material, and makes it shock resistant and vibration resistant. Not only that, but an oxidized vanadium isotope has the power to store and emit efficient amounts of energy.

Which is why it is said to be 'nearly indestructible'. Whatever mixed with this might be hard to eliminate.

Moira and Oasis

On the Chemistry Ministry lab's computers, right next to the destroyed site of where one experiment has escaped, you can find recent chats between Moira and Anya Al-Shahrani.

And my god, these messages not only talk about the hero and it's possible abilities, but about how off the rails Moira is when it comes to the experiments in Oasis. Her craft is unhinged, and she truly is a mad scientist. She goes as far as keeping the material used for the experiment away from the other Ministries, specifically the Ministry of Geology.

You can find the entire translation of the chats here.

Minister Anya Al-Shahrani and Moira are constantly clashing heads at this point, and not only does it give us insight on the new hero, but also how Moira works around her Oasis peers.

Where her demeanor towards the others is snide and possessive. Undermining another Ministry in the process. In this instance we need to remember that Moira's drive stems from her own self-testing, she is physically 'withering away' as Lifeweaver would put it.

You can see how her own self experimentation is adding pressure to her progress overall. Where she is isolated and obsessed, pushing herself until the material itself is thoroughly analyzed.

However, when Moira says that the material has found a permanent home in the Genetics Ministry, you can guess that she's already used the isotope for her own personal experiments, keeping it stored in the Chemistry Ministry later on.

And, it breaks loose.

Who is or what are the 'Phreaks?'

I'm just going to say, holy cow, this hero and their faction has made a mess of things in the Oasis lab. We can't be entirely sure whether or not to call this person a hero, but I'd like to think this is a hero amongst Moira's experiments.

Perspective wise, a hero towards the newest 'Phreaks' faction that is being introduced. They are foils against Oasis, but this does not mean that they aren't capable of hurting other factions as well.

I'm going to also assume that Talon is one of them considering that this is one of Moira's experiments gone awry. But also say that Doomfist is not going to be pleased about any of this.

Or he might be pleased that one of these experiments is wreaking havoc on people in revenge, though I think this might make his plans more difficult with coming to fruition.

(I'm being open minded about the possibilities.)

I also would love to see this hero interact with all of Moira's experiments. I'm sure we will at some point, but I'm rooting for Sigma's interaction the most. Maybe Mercy's if we're lucky enough.

As for the Phreaks, I'd like to say that the sprays in the Chemistry Ministry is not conveying just one character.

I think that it could convey a number of different experiments. A character mutated plant-wise with a touch of toxicity, a dog-like experiment guarded with armor and it's own enlarged teeth, and a sparked up serpent with a lit fuse. There's also another small holo-spray to the right door of the lab, but I can't quite figure it out.

This could also be seen that with the Vanadium isotope being used as the main part of this experiment, that these signs could just be the different parts of this hero altogether, or the different facets of each experiment affected by Vanadium testing.

Armored Dog: Vanadium's capability to enhance other metals, making them stronger.

Acidic Flower: Vanadium's resistance to natural corrosion.

Electric Eel/Serpent: Vanadium's capability to store and emit energy efficiently.

So what about the new hero?

However, with humans, Vanadium is a toxic material. It affects in a negative way.

"High exposure to Vanadium can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and greenish discoloration of the tongue."

So I think this character, although mixed with an 'indestructible isotope' could have negative side effects if not taken care of properly, or watched over by the person (Moira) who is responsible for the change in the first place.

Regarding roles, and the ongoing buzz of this being a tank, I do think making use of the vibration and shock resistance would make sense if going up against a different hero like Venture, or a possible Mauga slamming down onto your team.

This does sound like another form of an Orisa fortify, but I think the difference is that this hero might become slightly less hindered by status effects instead of knockback. You're still going to get pushed around, but the damage intake can be lessened with one of your abilities.

As for the resistance to natural corrosion, abilities that cause map and area denials might not work, but end up charging this hero's damage output.

I'm thinking of Lucario from Super Smash Bros, mixed with Electro from the Amazing Spider-Man 2.

Abilities like Torb's Molten Core, Venture's Tectonic Shock, and Sigma's Gravitic Flux might not work well against this hero.

But D.Va bombs, Kitsune Rush, High Noons, Baptiste's matrix, and ultimates that can dish out incredible amounts of high damage input and increase could work well.

Then again, this is all just a theory, so let me know what you think. Since the hero has yet to be released, I'm making it adamantly clear that this is purely my take on what they could be. It is no way canon.

[hashipebbles]

FUCK I WISH ID ALREADY POSTED MY SILLY LITTLE DRAWING BUT YALL WTF-

UNHINGED RAMBLING UNDER THE CUT CAUSE I CANT TAKE THIS ANYMORE (it's been 5 minutes since I found out dhhdjd)

IM JUST,,,,,IM BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING AGAIN,,,OH M Y G OD.

I just there's so much potential here but then I start thinking about the last collab- the cowboy bebop one and I know THE CONCEPTS WERE ON POINT AS THEY ALWAYS ARE -and I mean I have yet ti watch cowboy bebop but I do know many agree the translation to the game wasn't all they hoped for- I know the one punch collab was pretty killer and people leapt for those

I JUST I LOVE BOTH THESE THINGS SO MUCH AND I CANT FATHOM HOW THEY WILL ACTUALLY PUT THIS TOGETHER CAUSE THERES A FRW POSSIBILITIES!?

like in the the Le Serrafim collab the characters got skins like they were going to the groups concert instead of making them the band members or something which I THINK IS SUPER COOL AND COULD BE FUN FOR TF IF THEY DO SOMETHING AKIN TO THE BISHOUJO DESIGNS!?!? and I'm kinda rooting for that JUST Just because I don't know how many characters currently could be transformed (lol-) to look like the bots-

I saw one or two people saying Reinhardt as optimus and I just wonder in my brain like THAT WOULD BE COOL cause I love them both so so much but I'm curious if-OKAY WELL NOW I CAN SEE IT WORKING,,, but like how much into it are they going?? I wonder if they are going to go for g1 or a specific continuity or like create a mix/new kinda thing for this??? Like are the ow charcters going to embody tf characters or dress up like them?? Are we gonna get any new gamodes?? Is it gonna be like the overwatch charcters working with the auto bots and decepticons- IS THERE GONNA BE AN EVENT AT ALL?? OR JUST COSMESTIXS?? GUYS MY HEAD IS GONNA EXPLODE 💥

BUT RAHH AGAIN is it gonna be like tf exist physically in universe liek a crossover alternate thing or like the last few collabs,,,, and another thing is wait hold on imagine Reinhardt as megatron,,,,wait hold up now,,

RAHG I CANT THINK STRAIGHT (happy pride 🏳️‍🌈✨️)

I gotta stop yappin...but I'm I'm banking in something similar to the le serrafim collab maybe with like one hero or so getting THE skin like a specific tf and that's probably the mystic,,,,, *crashes*

[wildissylupus]

So we're pretty sure Mauga is going to be the Blizzcon announcement. After him, are there any known characters left to join the playable cast? Max doesn't strike me as playable material. Same for Nguyen. Maybe that guy from Ana's group photo we still dont know the name of?

There are a couple of options, either they create a completely new character that helps explore either the world or another characters lore, or they bring in other established characters.

And there are actually a lot of options for pre established characters they can introduce;

Sanjay, an inner circle Talon member who is Symmetra's mentor. He shows up in Sym's comic, short story, and in Moira's origin.

Iggy, omnic introduced in the "London Calling" comics

Lynx 17, a hacker omnic who was introduced in "Searching"

Frankie, a hacker character introduced in "Deadlock Rebels", she's one of the founders of Deadlock

As you mentioned, the guy in the group photo, there's actually a possibility that he's working for Talon now as we see someone looking similar to him sitting with Doomfist in one comic, but of the time of this post we know nothing about him

There are probably more but that's all I can think of from the top of my head, there is also the possibility that new heroes could be made in reaction to what is currently happening in lore. Characters like Emily or Claire could possibly put on some tech and start helping out Overwatch.

[unverified-mawa]

With Clove and Venture (from Valorant and Overwatch, respectively) being both games' first non-binary representation, I feel like we're seeing a positive shift in inclusion in the characters we get to play as in live-service games.

I feel like it can be difficult to strike a balance as queer gamers between being positive about the inclusion of characters who are like us, while also criticizing how that representation is handled.

At the same time though, queer rep is becoming commonplace enough among some of the most profitable games around that I think it is possible for us to do a fair comparison, between e.g. the characters above vs. Apex Legends' queer characters, vs League of Legends, etc.

Like, there's a very finite amount of storytelling you can do for a new "hero" in a "hero shooter" or whatever. But live service games have standardised around similar amounts of marketing materials per season, so I don't think it's unfair to compare the representation in those games to each other. Even though those characters are by necessity a lot less explored than <some indie game with a trans protagonist that focuses on their experiences>.

I'm starting to coalesce around a feeling that maybe we could start handing out letter grades to game companies for how they handle specific queer characters in their games. Like, we'd have to be pretty media literate ourselves to read all the material the developer provides with a new character release fairly, but I think we can't just treat all live-service game representation as "impossible to judge" any more.

For me, Clove and Venture, get a passing C grade in good queer rep, with Clove maybe a little higher than Venture. That's okay! My teacher's comment in red notes at the end of the test paper would be "character design is good and you've thought their identity when making their design, but in future I would like to see you work the identities of your characters into their stories more and how they present themselves."

I definitely have more thoughts on both of these characters though than just one sentence. But maybe you disagree and would rate these or other characters differently. I'm comparing these two to Bloodhound and Catalyst in Apex, and Testament and Bridget in Guilty Gear Strive.

What is some good queer representation you have seen for a character added to a live-service game and why? What would you consider to be the requirements for a "passing grade" when it comes to a new queer character?

[bugslaststraw]

Overwatch: the art of writing bad stories on purpose

Clocking in at just over 4k words: a semi-coordinated rant on the topic of Blizzard's history of lawsuits, Overwatch'es history of canonical queerness, and the strange marketing techniques that tie the two topics together. Written by someone who got into the game less than a week ago and likes it in a hatewatch "I love garbage" sort of way, intended for those less familiar with the topic at hand. I tried to source claims but it didn't work so let it be known that I did actual research but I'll probably get stuff wrong anyway so I tried to be funny about it here we go:

Section 1: Frat Boy Snowstorm and it's attempts at being progressive.

Try to focus. This is the most boring part.

So as I hope you all know by now, Blizzard is a pretty shit company. I say shit, because controversial sounds too unbiased. Most of us are familiar with the lawsuits against the company relating to sexual assault charges, unsafe working conditions for female employees and a quote "frat boy environment," of which they've been under fire for since 2018, but recently (early April '23 to be precise) they've also faced a lawsuit for sneakily coming up with a way to underpay their eSports champions. (Both of these are easy to look up if you want more info.) However, the company is a giant, that along with Overwatch released Call of Duty and a bunch of other games I don't recognise (fuck me I'm not an FPS person,) and, aside from the money they easily paid out, they really haven't faced any major consequences for their scummy behaviour.

This is exactly what they want, of course: for the whole thing to blow over as quickly as possible. Keep this in mind as we move on. That's the whole reason Section 1 exists: to remind you that Blizzard, like Disney, is a Big Corporate Company that will go to ridiculous lengths to make sure that the actually relevant controversies are forgotten in favour of smaller stupider shit.

If there's one thing Blizzard loves to do more than make their female employees uncomfortable, it's to tote around their progressiveness. Of course, this usually doesn't extend to Call of Duty or any of their more "grounded" "gritty" and generally masculine domains, but Overwatch specifically is a testing ground for all kinds of bullshit and we can't go a season without one billion articles about "Overwatch first game to have character of xxx nationality on playable roster" etc etc etc. People absolutely shit their pants every time the game announces a new queer hero or whatever, because since it's a Big Corporate Company and it's just barely achieving the bare minimum of inclusivity, of course, that's got to be a big deal right? Except of course that like Disney, Blizzard will do literally fucking anything to make sure their games stay relevant and that more people buy and play them, and these attempts at inclusivity can be assumed to be preformed mainly out of a desire to make money and cover up their scandals, and not because the people who call shots actually care. It becomes incredibly clear how Blizzard sees inclusivity as an idea when you consider their viral invention from last year, the Diversity Space Method.

To some of you this may look like a good thing at first, and originally I think it was, as the idea was to keep track of how many of their characters weren't any of these things displayed above so that they could keep that number down, but as soon as someone came up with the idea to assign a certain number of points to each character, the whole concept crashes and burns. You see, according to this chart here, (and as another Tumblr user famously put it), Torbjörn (3) is older than Lucio (2) is black. And I'm pretty damn sure that's not how that works.

No doubt a percentage of the artists and writes for the game had some sort of passion. After all, there is genuine treasure to be found in the character designs, animations and even some of the voice acting. But you know how it is when it comes to inclusivity; the artists so often never get to do more than drop hints and leave people guessing. Which leads us neatly into the next section.

Section 2: This game's kinda shit!

And I don't mean the game itself. Idk about that, I never played it (and my friends who do all have wildly varying opinions.) I am talking about the stories. When I first started "researching" (hatewatching) the shorts and comics for this game, I was angrily wondering why they all felt so hollow. It was like looking at AI generated art, it was like looking into the eyes of what you thought was a person and seeing two camera lenses staring back, it felt empty, it felt bland despite all the good character designs and the lore and the concepts and the colors and the nice clean lines. Something was missing, and it was uncanny as hell! Eventually though, I managed to narrow it down to a few key issues:

A lot of comics and shorts feel like ads above eveyrthing else, they're made to sell the game rather than be good, and they therefore lack passion.

Possibly as a result of this, they operate almost entirely on "tell don't show" rules, thereby feeling even more empty.

These stories still manage to lack substance and they don't really canonise a lot about the world or characters, especially regarding relations between characters, and,

the really interesting storylines are usually left uncontinued or unexplored, possibly due to aformentioned lack of passion and an egotistical but sadly fulfilled hope that people will download the game or at least read the rest of the comics to find out more.

All this put together make for a very strange experience in which you can, if you squint, see the fuzzy outline of a good story, good worldbuilding and interesting characters, and imagine that the details make sense. Which, granted, is usually what people do. If you use your brain or have experience in writing, however, it all falls apart.

Section 3A: Overwatch is a knock-off

Well, not exactly. But it does have a strange habit of borrowing from other games. For example, did you know I'm a TF2 fan? Probably. Did you know each individual TF2 class has an Overwatch equivalent? Me neither, until now. Scout and Tracer, Medic and Mercy, Sniper and Widowmaker, Spy and Sombra, hmm I'm sensing a pattern here, Demo and Junkrat (we'll get back to him later,) and so on.

"That's a coincidence," you say. "They're similar games, of course there are equivalents," you say. To that I says: you may be right. We may all collectively be overthinking this. We may all also collectively be overthinking the Omnic crisis as a whole and why it's so damn similar to Fallout's synths, they've both got robot racism and violent groups who want to kill the robots one of which is in Australia, which is a plot point in TF2 as well oh look at that, but again I'm sure it's all a big fucking coincidence right and sorry sorry I'll stop now.

It is actually genuinely possible that those are coincidences, no sass intended, but considering how Blizzard operates on the whole, I doubt it. They've already proven to be rather lazy with their stories. There's nothing wrong with having similar ideas or being inspired, but when it's as noticeable as this, along with everything else, I just can't help but feel disappointed.

Section 3B: Overwatch is also a porn category

Oh yeah, speaking of never properly canonizing relationships between the characters (and aging their underage characters up to eighteen for hitherto mysterious reasons, and releasing all those horny fanservice skins,) here's an utterly ridiculous fact: when Overwatch dropped in 2016, quite a lot of people didn't know it was a game because there was so much (animated, drawn etc) porn of it that it flooded and quickly rose to the top of the "games" category on most popular sites (hard to source for obvious reasons, but I've had a friend check for me.) It still sits up there, by the way, surpassed only by funny space bean game (I'm not kidding.) Why? Two reasons. One: all the game's female characters are impossibly beautiful and (in every case but like two post-launch releases) skinny and generally conventional as well. No surprise there. Two: the game models are well rigged, high quality and incredibly easy to get at, making it so that people can tank them down and use them for whatever they like without issue. Rumour has it that this is on purpose.

My question is, what has this influx of smut done to the game? You see, if there's one thing Blizzard loves more than making their female employees uncomfortable, bragging about inclusivity, and copying other games, it's pandering. And they pander to everybody, or at least to as many people as possible, usually all at the same time if they can get away with it. This, I have to theorise, is why all the characters seem to be flirting with one another, but only one or two actual relationships are canon. They simply don't want to piss off any part of their demographic, which they force as wide open as possible because money money money money money. This means embracing the porn and making sly references to that part of the fanbase with skins, voice lines, and odd comments in interviews.

Anyway, back to the lawsuits, or rather the consequences of them. You see, canon queerness in Overwatch comes in threefold. This is the story of two thirds of it.

Section 4: Toy Soldier and Knock-off Scout Adventures

This is Soldier 76. And he's gay.

Everybody clap for Blizzard now. It's coyly canonised in a short story titled Bastet. 76 here was never a very popular Overwatch character, lore wise, so I guess this move makes sense. I can see why, too. He's very plain and simple design wise, almost grounded, but not enough that you notice it at a glance. He looks like a plastic toy. Anyway, his queerness wont piss off too many dudebros long-term, since fewer people play him, but it gives everybody else something to chew on, so everybody wins right?. When was Bastet released again? Oh, January of 2019? What else happened around that time? The settling and aftermath of the first lawsuit? Great. That totally wasn't a cover-up for anything. Definitely not.

It's not like 76 is the first character to be confirmed as queer though. Blizzard's favourite Overwatch character Tracer is too, being confirmed as having a girlfriend named Emily all the way back in 2016.

That's good right? I mean, that was before the controversy even started! Surely they did this for normal, innocent reasons and oh who the fuck am I kidding she's a conventionally attractive female character kissing another conventionally attractive female character in a game dominated by male players with male devs and a porn category more expansive than the Bible and we know damn well why that happened.

We can but pray that someone who was in on this gave a shit. Maybe the artist. The writer. Somebody. But this is a barren and cold world and I dare not hope even for that.

Not to mention, both of these things were distinctly one-off notes. It's mentioned once, and then never again, and after 2019 there was a four year radio silence on the whole subject of queer characters that didn't change until the release of OW2. And yet, Blizzard loved to brag about how inclusive they are at every turn even back then. "Look at us," they say, as the characters stare at you from the computer screen with their dead, hollow eyes, "look at how good we are! Please buy our game."

The status quo would change significantly in 2023, however, with the introduction of their latest addition to the roster; Lightweaver. Lifeweaver. Lightweaver? Wait hold on

Section 5: The most annoying twunk to ever grace the earth flings you into the stratosphere

This is Niran "Bua" Pruksamanee, also known as Lifweaver.

He debuted on the 11th of April, 2023, and he's The First at a lot of things, which, of course, made headlines. "First Thai character in a major FPS game" was probably the most common one. I'd feel better about that if I didn't know it's most likely the result of Blizzard trying to cash in inclusivity points. The second First he has is the more controversial one, however: First Overwatch character to be confirmed queer on launch. That's right, after four years of Jack Shit, they're back on it! And, well.

You see, to fully understand my emotions about this you need to know who Lifeweaver is. Despite Overwatch being a game with Mr black-hole-head toes-out "yet another poor-taste representation of DID" Sigma and a football-sized foul-mouthed hamster in a mechsuit in it, neither of them manage to be very funny. Lifeweaver, however, is objectively fucking hilarious, for these main reasons:

His amicable, light hearted healer-character personality clashes with his backstory, in a way that actually works. Lifweaver is a scientist who dropped out of a prestigious academy to stop people from trying to A: steal and B: jail him for his invention: biolight (which is exactly what it sounds: light that grows like plants, or vice versa.) Because of this biolight stuff, he is canonically wanted in seventeen countries and counting. And yet he's so glad to be here, you can hear the smile in his voice, he's kind, he's carefree. And he flirts.

With, like, everybody. Notably Mercy, and apparently he was roomates with Symmetra and speaks very fondly of her. On top of that he's (very) low-key implied to at least want to flirt with Roadhog of all people (can't say I blame him, anyway I'll get back to him,) and, uuh. Baptiste? Who's Baptiste? Nope, never heard of him. Ex-mercenary who regrets his actions and now plays support to make up for all the murder he did? Is what you may be asking yourself. Seriously, nobody talks about Bap. Maybe that's why he's being brought back into semi-relevance now, as Lifeweaver canonically (and smoothly) asks him on a date at a nice restaurant, to which he, unsurprisingly, says yes. He's always been very flirty himself. That should technically make it four canon queer characters in the game, but Baptiste still has some plausible deniability because of his personality, so arguments can still be argued, as they say.

Back to Lifeweaver. More specifically his playstyle. This bright pink healer wants nothing but to help people and further science! His players, however, will gladly ruin your day for shits and giggles. You see, it's become a bit of a gimmick of Overwatch as a whole to let you move your enemies around the battlefield. Junker Queen has her magnetic gauntlet thing, Roadhog has a hook, everybody and their mom have knockback, etc. Lifeweaver, however, can move his friends around. He has an ability to pull his teammates towards himself which he can also use to sling some of them across the map if they cooperate and/or move wrong. He can also raise a platform under any player that tosses them (or their lifeless corpse) into the air. This is incredibly useful in a coordinated team where everybody's using voice chat, eg. the way Overwatch is actually meant to be played. Overwatch is, however, never played how it's meant to be played. Hilarity ensues.

The circumstances of Lifeweaver's release. Here's the thing. On the 4th of April 2023, exactly one week before his release, Blizzard was sued again, this time for underpayment and mistreatment of their eSports champions. Although it's impossible to create a whole character in a week, it's fully possible that at least some parts of Lifeweaver's personality and some of the stuff he calls to canon (we'll get to The Thing later I promise, be patient,) were influenced by this. It's comically well timed that such a controversial character dropped so soon after that scandal, and while the model and animations were definitely finalized before that, any given set of voice lines could've been phoned in on the night of April 4th for all we know.

Put together, all of this is either infuriating or ridiculous. Some days it's one, some days the other, and some days, I'm just not sure. Originally I hated Lifeweaver. He felt predictable to me, a cheap coverup, a stereotype, and an annoying one at that. But eventually I sort of came around, because he got so annoying that I kind of had to respect him for it. From there, I eventually ended up here. And I think a lot of other people, notably the players themselves, felt the same. Go figure.

Section 6A: No scummy marketing tactic is complete without queerbait!

Valuable life lesson: it is very, very hard to tell wether or not something is queerbait by looking at the media itself. The possibilities that the perceived homoerotic tension is an accident, or a hint that's left vague for stylistic reasons, or simply a slow burn, are all present and impossible to rule out. The real way you find out if something is queerbait is by looking at the actual marketing. Listen to what devs say in interviews. Look at promotional material. Et cetera. Because I don't have the patience to watch those interviews, I can't actually say wether what I'm about to discuss is queerbait or a series of unfortunate accidents made as a result of Blizzard's bad habit of pandering, so I'll let you form your own conclusions and possibly go look it up on your own. (And then come back here and tell me about it because I'm so so curious.) I am probably going to go into excruciating detail on this next part. I am so sorry. I can't help but have favourites. So without further ado;

This is Jamison "Junkrat" Fawkes.

Or at least, it was back in OW1. (I promise the full body transparent background image is crucial.)

Anyway, this absolute bastard is a favorite of mine. (Having favourite OW characters? I am cringe but I am free.) He was in the game from launch, and remains one of the more interesting and, shall we say, least soulless characters in the game to this day. Not that there's that much to him. He never shuts up, he's clinically insane as a result of several concussions and a lot of radiation, and he really really likes blowing things up. Together with Roadhog, he's a freelance mercenary with little to no morals whatsoever, taking on whatever job gets them both cash, action, and buildings to explode.

Oh yeah, right. Mako "Roadhog" Rutledge, the quiet, stoic and occasionally terrifying two meter tall shit brickhouse with a stitched gas mask shaped like a pig snout and a massive hook on a chain. Sadly, although he's crucial to the segment, I can't really discuss him as much as I would like to because he has like five voice lines in total (an exaggeration) and half of them are just him telling Junkrat to shut the fuck up (not an exaggeration.) "Stoic, silent characters can be interesting without speaking," I hear you say. Yes, I reply, if they're well written. But this is Overwatch. Never ever get your hopes up about Overwatch.

Anyway, the trash rat and Mr Whole Hog here have an interesting history. Originally, they were simply friends, running around and doing Hilarious Antics™ (that were never very funny, other than in concept.) They feature in several comics together (none of which are very good,) they chat a lot in game and they have their own animated short called The Plan (which is the first Overwatch thing I ever consumed, also not very good, but hey, it landed me here.) And before I get into the queerbait part of this segment, let me just say that studying just this small part of Overwatch tells volumes about the writing all on its own. The tell-don't-show, the inconsistencies, the rampant ludonarrative dissonance... Stars, the comics want you to take Roadhog so seriously. They're leaning super hard into the edge with a brutal backstory and focus on making him as menacing as possible. Meanwhile, in game he, and I cannot stress this enough, walks around ass out the entire time. Google at your own risk. Don't say I didn't warn you!

There is this one voice line, triggered when interacting with one another, where Junkrat says somthn' like "You'll hook 'em, I'll cook 'em!" and Roadhog just sighs in frustration, but then there's another line, triggered the same way, where HE begins the saying, "I'll hook 'em..." "And I'll cook 'em!" In short, fuck you consistency, and this contrast could be really interesting if it was well written. But of course Overwatch will Never Ever elaborate on this, as per usual.

As the years went by, however, things got... A bit weird. Junkrat has always been friendly. According to him, he and Hoggie (he calls him that, not me) are the bestest of friends. And although Roadhog acts as though he hates Junkrat a lot of the time, this is very obviously just tsundere behaviour used to mask the fact that he does really like him quite a lot. But in what way? "Gayass," said half the fandom. "No, fuck you," said the other half, "this is clearly a father-son dynamic." "You're all homophobic," said the first half. "Maybe we are," said the second, "what are you gonna do about it?"

And Blizzard... Did nothing. Well, they did canonise their ages at some point, and there is about two decades inbetween the two (Junkrat is allegedly 25 although I find that hard to believe, I mean look at him, and RH is in his late forties) which one would assume suggests their support of the father-son thing, right? Man, if only it were that easy. First of all, the writing is so nondescript and vague that their actual dynamic doesn't resemble a parental one even in the slightest, especially not on Junkrat's tounge, and seeing as he's both more affectionate and more talkative I'll lend that it's appropriate weight. Predictably, there is also one line that is inexplicable, unexplainable and clearly an innuendo, where if you run Junkrat and eliminate an enemy RH, he'll say something like "I guess we know who's on top now, don't we?" This doesn't appear to be a reference to anything, trust me, I've tried to check. Excuse me while I take a sledgehammer to Blizzard's servers. Again, we can't assume anything's ever on purpose, but c'mon. Who greenlit that?

So, unsurprisingly, Blizzard is being annoyingly non-commital again, so as not to piss off either half of their fanbase. Things went kinda quiet after that. Anything released was, again, purposely vague.

And then OW2 happened.

Section 6B: Subtlety, lack thereof, and the art of applying a metallic texture to a default Blender orb

This is Junkrat, as his current in game model. Sad, right? How they forced him to take a bath before letting him into OW2? How they regrew his hair and ripped off his cooler patches? It's a fucking travesty. People are calling him "Cluttermouse" as a joke now. Why would they do this? They massacred my boy.

Anyway, if you're observant you'll notice he's got an earring now. Yeah, on his right ear. Yeah. What's that? You were on Tumblr in 2016? You remember all the circling posts about "earring on the right ear means person wearing it is gay" posts? You grew up a bit and assumed that was made up or blown out of proportion? You asked your mom one day and she confirms it was a very widely known symbol until around the century change? Some fans must've noticed. Most of them didn't, though, because most of them are twelve. Anyway, I tell myself (and you) that it doesn't actually have to mean anything. If you look at the design again you'll see Rattie here is very asymmetrical, and leaned to his-right-your-left, both of his prosthetics being on that side. (He even walks unevenly, which I love.) It's likely that the modellers simply had no clue about the earring symbolism thing, and just wanted to play into that asymmetry. Right?

...and then Lifeweaver dropped.

And then everyone lost their fucking minds.

Ya see, dearest readers (thank you for making it this far,) Lifweaver, Pink Petal Supporthero McGoodguy, has not one, but two conversations with Junkrat in game. One of them feels fairly normal, with them discussing the price on Lifeweaver's "noggin" and laughing about it a bit. The other one, oh boy, the other one goes like this:

🌸"Are you and Roadhog together?"

🐀"Do~ you ever see us apart?

🌸"No. I meant: are you couple?"

🐀"Yes!! A couple of dashing rouges! Not sure... What you're missing here."

Yeah. I'd lose my shit too. I guess I kind of did, but not for the reason you think. You see, this right here, in terms of pure writing talent, is fucking genius, because it manages to be controversial without actually confirming anything. By that I mean, that because Fawkes said "yes" quite enthusiastically, the half of the fandom that said "gayass" think he meant yes, but because he noped out of that yes with the "couple of dashing rouges" bit, the other half of the fandom think he meant no! This is where I really start to wonder if they called Junkrat's voice actor at 2 in the morning and went "hey bud take a few extra grand and help us record another few lines will you? We just got sued again."

This shit is simultaneously funny as hell, sad, and absolutely infuriating. In reality, Junkrat has approximately two braincells rattling around in his skull, of which he is constantly frying, due to all the concussions. He probably doesn't even know what his relationship to Mako is. That might've been the case, and it would've been a good joke, had Overwatch been a well-written game. Sadly, it's all shitfuck at worst and boring at best, and this latest little oddity just makes me even more convinced that Junkrat and his partner have been banished to Queerbait Limbo for the foreseeable future.

Section 7: In conclusion,

Blizzard is shitfuck company, Overwatch is shitfuck game, I spent at least three hours writing this up and probably more editing it together and in less than a month, it's June and Overwatch'es first in-game pride event drops. Needless to say, I'm scared.

How much time did you waste reading? Did I state fake news? Do you have additional trivia? Do tell. I'm so curious. This has been four thousand words of nothing. Goodbye.

[purplekoop]

ngl I'm curious about your ideas for Venture and spaceranger. I saw a theory SR could be Fio from Blackwatch and I think Venture could be our Portuguese hero, maybe has a build (turret, wall, etc) made of duravidro. Still hoping for heroes 42 to 45 being Lynx 17, Maximilien, a Roman champion fighter, and an Afro-American New York firefighter.

Okay lot of parts to this one to answer

Starting with Venture, here's their art for reference:

Now, with their pretty apparent explorer/excavation-themed design, with giant drill and what looks like climbing/excavation gear on their back, my first thought for what map they tie into is actually Petra, the deathmatch map set in Southern Jordan's wonder of the world. The map is littered with details alluding to an ongoing excavation project, so I think Venture could be part of that team. Plus, I think the slightly darker skin tone could possibly fit an Arabic character.

While I can't make it out with just this little image, I think the insignia on this sleeve could be the key to figuring out this character's faction.

As for kit, I don't really have any great ideas yet. While their drill at first appears to be a melee weapon, letting you just drill into people for rapid close-range damage, but I feel like it could have some kind of surprise projectile component.

In addition to me thinking they're from Jordan and not Portugal, I also doubt they're a "builder" character due to those being an ongoing struggle to balance in the Damage role. My belief for what Esperanca is alluding to is still a Tank hero that we won't be seeing for a while. Considering how long it takes heroes to be developed (note Mauga was just revealed today after being first teased in 2019), I think something as relatively recent as Esperanca won't lead to something new so "soon".

(I actually have a character for my original hero/class shooter project War Bots who uses a drill in a couple ways, and they are actually a builder character who uses it to build buildings and also tunnel underground to move around safely. They deserve their own post soon though.)

As a reminder, we are due to see some early gameplay footage of Venture tomorrow in the "Overwatch 2: What's Next" segment of Blizzcon tomorrow at 1:30 PM PST (so 4:30 for me in the EST), so we won't have to wait long to see some of how they play!

Going from underground to out of this world, let's talk about "Space Ranger" next!

(I gotta say it if I haven't already that I love both of these designs, even if they're still certainly still concept art and might actually change a fair bit before release, especially in the case of Star Command here releasing all the way in the far off galaxy of Season 12. Still, very cute, love the colors and overall vibe, big fan.)

So starting off with the theory you saw, the idea that this is Fio, the Blackwatch pilot from Retribution, certainly is... interesting, certainly an idea with precedent if Sojourn is anything to go by. I didn't remember what they looked like so I checked the wiki and...

...Yeah no these are completely different people, sorry. Fio has what looks to be red hair underneath the helmet and... I wanna say a European face? Ranger meanwhile has the dang Twilight Sparkle hair, and her face strikes me more like how East Asian characters tend to look in Overwatch's art style, like D.va and Kiriko with their slightly more "anime-esque" faces. Not to say I wouldn't welcome Fio to the roster (even though they'd be. Far, Far from my first pick for an established character to join the roster), but this definitely ain't them.

As for who I do think this could be, or rather what characters they're related to, I think between possibly being Asian and also being more obviously space-themed, I think they could very likely be affiliated with Lucheng Interstellar, the Chinese aerospace company behind Horizon Lunar Colony. According to the wiki, they also have other space station projects they are/were working on, so Space Ranger could be related to either of those.

As for kit, I don't have much to say for them either. Some neat ideas I saw were that they could be another hyper-mobile support like Mercy or Lucio, and could possibly even have some sort of gravity-manipulating buff. I really don't have much to say yet, but there's plenty of room for cool ideas!

Speaking of cool ideas, lemme take a sec to go over all yours!

Lynx 17 is definitely a popular pick I can get behind, between their fun design and the capacity for a support hacker-themed character. My Sombra Role Requeue was just one way to take the concept, I feel like there's even more room to start from the ground up! Though I do also wanna shoutout Franky, a character from the Deadlock Rebels novel that was essentially the other main founding member of the gang along with Cassidy and Ashe (and B.O.B. too, of course), who's also a hacker. I don't blame people for giving Lynx 17 higher priority, both due to being around longer and also being another cool Omnic, as well as being canonically non binary already. I would like to see a human NB character sooner than later, (hence why I've been referring to Venture and SR gender-neutrally this whole post) but Lynx still slaps so I'd be happy to see them too.

Maximilien is I think probably the most notable lore character that's yet to be playable now that we've finally got our greasy mitts on Mauga. Another fun established design and personality who's been around the story even longer than Mauga actually. Shoot, we've even seen the bastard in one of the story trailers, with Doomfist implying that he's got a job to do that the greedy omnic seems uncomfortable with. That could easily mean he has to get his hands dirty when he doesn't want to, so... could be teasing him being playable? My main objection to his inclusion on the roster is that I don't have a great idea for what exactly he'd... do. He's basically a cowardly civilian who just happens to be bankrolling a terrorist organization. This could definitely work into his kit, making him a support who sucks in direct fights but has ways of backing up allies. The one solid ability idea I got for him though is that his gun would be a silenced pistol. that's it. Now obviously some creativity on the hero design team's part could fix that issue, but still, it's something to consider.

Now for the characters who aren't as established, a roman gladiator is another one that's been tossed around a lot since the map was first revealed. Like I said with a character teased by the Portugal map though, OW heroes take a long time to develop, and they're still catching up on established characters like Mauga, so the teasers from OW2's new maps could take a WHILE to get to at this rate. Which isn't shocking really, they wanna keep Overwatch going for a while and I personally can get behind that, so I understand them setting up so many teasers they can follow up on later. As for the gladiator specifically, this idea still hasn't actually excited me that much. I struggle right now to think about what could make one of the mech gladiators unique from the tanks we already have on the roster. A melee weapon and shield? Reinhardt. A spear? Orisa. Again, creativity solves a lot of problems, but it's why I've never been that excited for this idea since Colosseo was first revealed.

That last idea though, THAT has me interested.

I've honestly never heard that idea before! It's so cool too, a firefighter would have such a fun pool of ideas to work from. Overwatch doesn't really have any water-themed heroes, and as far as I'm aware the team hasn't considered it aside from one rejected concept for what eventually became Lifeweaver. I'm honestly not even sure what role would fit a firefighter better, because the bulky outfits and some kind of water pushing ability would fit Tank, but the whole "life saving" part could fit Support better. This is such a cool idea, I'd honestly love to hear you elaborate on it more!

So yeah, wanted to give a thorough response talking about all of these future heroes, confirmed and otherwise. I'll almost certainly have more to say tomorrow when they talk about the two new faces, but that's for 20 hours from now. Thanks for the ask though, fun to talk about all this!

[professionalranter31]

post idea: top five countries with maps in game (or just top 5 maps) that you want a chatacter for, regardless of if theyre affiliated with a canon griuo or not. For me it goes number 1 Colosseo, number 2 Midtown, number 3 Ilios, number 4 Lijiang, number 5 circuit royal, and number 6 (in case space ranger gets tied to Lijiang) esperança.

Okay, first of all Colosseo definitely deserves a gladiator character us to be able to play as

Second of all, given the history that was revealed for New York and how it handled itself during the Omnic Crisis yeah Midtown deserves a hero to represent it

Now onto my list I’m gonna do maps because heroes having connections to maps that we have in game makes them feel more connected to the Overwatch World

At Number Five we got Malevento because aside from Black Forest it’s the only deathmatch map that doesn’t have a hero to represent it. We do know that it has connections to Talon and that it’s part of the hyper loop much like Midtown

At Number Four we got Rialto. While we do know that Talon meetings happen here we don’t have someone who actually lives or works there so I think it would be pretty cool if we got a new Talon character to represent Rialto

At Number Three we have Havana. Given its lore significance and that it’s also just a very beautiful map I feel it deserves a hero to represent it

Number two is Ayutthaya which was the map released when Capture the Flag was released. I just feel like it deserves a bit of love despite its game mode not getting as much

And at number one is all the fucking maps that have been in the game since the launch of the first Overwatch game that somehow don’t have a hero that lives there or works there no seriously how is that even possible? Hollywood and Illios and Volskaya Industries have gone without a hero to represent them since launch how is that even possible!? They are right there to be used to base a hero around them and give those maps some real serious lore that quite frankly they could use right now especially Hollywood and Illios. I know it’s unfair to put three maps at the number one spot (possibly more if I forgot any launch maps that don’t have a hero representing them) but it genuinely upsets me that the maps don’t have a hero representing them despite how long they’ve been in the game

[starrygalazy]

There's been a massive amount of OW hate (most of which is just a ton of angry people who won't let go of the whole PvE issue and stuff Blizzard at this point has no control over at this point in time), but it's OW Dev Appreciation Day so I wanna talk abt my favorite things about the Overwatch franchise and my feelings about most everything (I kindly ask for no hate or saying why the company/game/devs suck)

The devs have been working on Overwatch since 2016, and I genuinely have never loved a game and it's characters more. They were all their own character with awesome kits, great personalities, fantastic skins, and more. The game modes are smart and well thought-out, and balances are constantly being made to adjust the characters and make them fun for all. The devs are constantly trying new things with the characters to make them as fun as possible. They're also constantly working on lore, relationships, voice lines, maps, game modes, skins, characters, and a ton more. They've been doing this for close to a decade, and even when they took a break on making new content for the game, it was to develop Overwatch 2.

Overwatch 2 in its own right is my favorite game ever and I doubt I can find anything to top it. There's so much crammed into the game that at least once a week I find a feature or interaction I didn't know about even since launch. Im playing with people who are having as much fun as me and making cute little friendships. And don't even get me STARTED on PvE. I was kicking my feet screaming and laughing (and annoying the shit out of my brother bc I was so excited) as I played through the missions. Every little bit of it was so fun and, personally, 100% worth the 15 dollars. I mean, we got 3, THREE, missions with 4 difficulties, multiple heroes, and a shit ton of voice lines to discover for less than the price of some of the skins. Knowing Blizzard, that's amazing. There's a ton of stuff to discover in all of them. They distribute it pretty evenly throughout all the characters too, so none are getting completely neglected and all of them have unique lore.

All that being said.

Is Overwatch 2 a flawed game? Oh yeah. Is Blizzard a very flawed company? Oh yeah. Some of the prices and bundles are definitely ridiculous in price. There's a lot of issues, especially within the company and being greedy for money and harrassment. It's not like Overwatch 1.

But isn't that kinda the point?

It's a whole new game. If they wanted to keep it as Overwatch 1 they would of. Comparing the two, obviously Overwatch 1 comes out on top. But that's why it's pointless to hold Overwatch 2 to those standards, you literally can't. But in its own right, in its own category, Overwatch 2 really isn't as bad as people make it out to be. To a new player or someone somewhat easy to satisfy (like me), it's crazy addicting and fun.

I could say so much more, but it's bound to start a debate and I don't have the energy to write it all down. But personally, I love the game. I hate what angry, immature people are doing to it just bc they didn't get what they expected (like seriously, at least be grateful you got SOME kind of PvE), especially all the steam reviews about the nsfw artists doing more than the devs. They're literally trying to make money just like Blizzard. They're trying to achieve the same means: get money by making something others can have fun with.

In the grand scheme of things, the flaws are manageable and sort of overexaggerated. I have a blast playing the game and so do so many people other than the people spamming negative reviews on Steam (Seriously, you're taking time out of your day to do that?).

So, a big thanks to Overwatch Devs. Overwatch 2 in its own right is super fun and enjoyable, and even if it's expensive people can have fun with or without spending money. Thanks for actually giving us PvE and new systems to make the game unique. Thanks for the content to come and the content we have.

My hat's off to the devs who work hard and want to make this the best game it can be. There's flaws, but they're handling all the recent events and hate very well, and working on their ability to the best of their ability. That's not something everyone can do so easily.

[supersexyactioncomics]

kermit the frog voice So in the seminal 2010 cartoon series adventure time there are many examples of the battle between chaos and order. On the side of order we have abraham lincoln, a great unifier; grob-glob-god, the hint is in the name that he is a manifestation of the abrahamic god; and of course prismo, sweet precious prismo. On the side of chaos we have forces such as magic man, whose a really really nasty piece of work; and the lich, the ultimate manifestation of chaos. But the text is more complicated than this simple battle between order and chaos - there is this ongoing post modern obsession with figures of false order: the most obvious of course being the 'earl' of lemongrab, an abomination created by princess bubblegum who uses dungeons and his title to present as a figure of order but all he does is shriek unpleasantly. Who can forget marceline's father of course. A businessman and a father he must represent order but no! He is a demon and a vampire! Can you even imagine a more frightening combination. He even violates the sacred trust between father and daughter by eating her fries- sobbing sorry I'm just getting emotional it's such a powerful betrayal. There is also princess bubblegum herself, she's a princess but also a woman, and the realm's constant conflict is caused by this fundamental flaw. She cannot fully embody the masculine role of protector king which is why the land of ooo needs finn, the redeeming hero with the shining sword! You can see in the later seasons she becomes a sort of stalin-esque tyrant. She has her Banana guard, a clear reference to the KGB, maintain terror in the citizens. You know there are people on tumblr.com who believe that Stalin was a trans woman- don't laugh, its a very reasonable theory. How else could such an organized society be so chaotic. It's helen of troy! It's like the french saying goes "Cherchez la Femme", it means "when there's trouble, look for the woman". I learned that from fallout new vegas. It's the name of a perk that turns your character into a lesbian - or I suppose some kind of lesbian heterosexual if you also took "Black Widow" - I'm sure the LGBTs community has a name for that. Speaking of spiders it's also a voice line in overwatch uttered by the despicable 'widowmaker' a woman who murders her husband - the greatest possible manifestation of chaos! She murders the robot dalai llama too! Now these two texts are clearly in conversation with one another and it proves that not only is widowmaker this devouring wife who destroys men but she is also, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a lesbian. And all the rule 34 overwatch hentai made in source filmmaker of tracer and widowmaker I've seen is canon.

[addictedtooverwatch]

Theorizing about the New Support Characters - Overwatch 2

Alright, so it's been like a month, sorry about that, but school's just been nuts! Anyways, there's some news going around after a Q&A hosted by @ ChristalRaine and @ BroYouWack on twitter with Hero Designer Alec Dawson about new characters.

We can expect to see new and familiar faces as the seasons continue, so I wanted to do a little theorizing about who we might be seeing. We also heard from Jared Neuss that we will be getting two new "cute" support heroes. Now, let's go into some theories! This is the longest post I've written in a bit, so buckle up.

Specific Characters:

Overlord - Member of MEKA Squad: We can guess that he would have a support role, considering he helps repair the Mechs. Based on what I've seen on twitter, he is one of the favorites of the fanbase to be one of the new characters.

2. Casino - Member of MEKA Squad: I would think that he wouldn't have a support role, but I could see him being a future character. While being a member of the MEKA Squad now, he was a F1 racecar driver in the past which could tie into some of the things we see in Circuit Royal.

3. Jetpack Cat - possibly Brigitte's cat. This charcter, who I'm fairly sure we see through one of Brigitte's emote, is definitly a fan-favorite who we know has some type of armor. Since they are associated with Brigitte, it would make sense that they could be a support.

4. Cláudio and Hector Martins - from a portrait in Esperança: If you want to get a really thorough explaination of who these characters are, check out this great video by Master Ian Gamer, but we may get either of these two characters or an assoicate of their's as one of the new characters since they are associated with a new faction in OW2 called The Collective.

5. Iggy - from the London Calling comics: Iggy is an omnic from The Underworld, Kings Row. I've seen a few people say that they want Iggy as one of the new support characters and I can't disagree. I really want some new omnic characters and I think Iggy could definitly be considered cute.

Less Specific Characters:

The Yōkai: This is a group who, along with Kiriko, protect Kanezaka. They all wear masks associated with different yōkai including a kitsune (Kiriko), a tanuki, an amabie, a kappa, a kasa-obake, and an oni.

2. Blackwatch/the Old Guard of Overwatch: Since we will be getting more lore with the release of PvE, whenever that will be, I'm hoping we'll get a character who was part of the original Overwatch. That could be someone like Fio, the Blackwatch pilot from the Venice Incident, or Kimiko who worked in hostage rescue.

3. Talon: A lot of people want to see Mauga or Maximillian as playable characters. While Mauga probably would be better as a tank, I think Maxilmillian could definitely work as a support.

4. Someone Completely New: This has happened a few times with characters like Sigma or Baptiste who we didn't get many hints for. I'd love to see a new omnic character or someone from Midtown, Colosseo, or Cicuit Royal.

And with that, those are some of the more popular/talked about theories I've seen. Personally, I really want Overlord, Casino, or a new omnic character to be added, but I'll be excited just to see who we get. Anyways, sorry it's been so long between posting, this year has just been a lot and I haven't felt the drive to post, but I'll be posting a compliation of my poetry soonish. So, you can be looking out for that and stuff about the new season of the Overwatch League since it'll be starting soon. ~ Nova.

[inktheory3]

Wild card question

Talk about anything you like about the following:

Main weapons

Hey, sorry all for taking a while to respond and for not messaging on this blog for a fair bit, life's gotten in the way of my free time for a long time now!

There is a lot to talk about when it comes to main weapons! I could spend hours analysing how amazing the concepts behind the weapons in Splatoon are, from their sound design to their models to their mechanical feel to the inspirations for their names.

One thing I truly love about Splatoon is how well their approach to weapons fits into the theme of the game. Splatoon's all about collaboration and customisation and being fluid and flexible, from the worldbuilding to the main characters to the fundamental biology of inkfish!

Unlike other fps games, where options are more limited (in Valorant you can have any gun, but can only use the abilities associated with the agent you chose, in Overwatch the hero you pick decides your primary weapon and abilities and so on) Splatoon has a whole order of magnitude of possible weapons, and each individual part of your kit is its own separate weapon that aren't explicitly tied to eachother. This isn't to say games like Valorant and Overwatch are bad, quite the opposite, (well at least design-wise) But the way Splatoon handles weapons fits the themes of the series so well and I admire it so much.

~

Of course this can't be an Inktheory3™️ post without me dragging out the length of this post with my own additions to the game.

This time its new main weapons! For the third time... (Brella and new weapon class posts)

Today I'll be going through my ideas for new weapons for every class other than the Brellas.

Shooters:

Now with the introduction of the Splattershot Nova into Splatoon 3, we have a Shooter for every situation. See this table:

This doesn't mean there's no room for even more shooters in the game, I see nothing wrong with that, as long as other weapon classes get just as consideration. Really, there are only 2 ways to add more unique shooters.

One is to make more extreme weapons (like how the 96. Gal is a more extreme 52. Gal with its pros and cons magnified), as all combinations of average stats have already been covered. This options not very enticing to me, because the ideas are very obvious and boring.

The second option is more semi-automatics, shooters with a unique rate of fire or multiple firing modes! I have 1 idea for a new shooter. There's no name for it as all my brainstormed ideas ended up a bit too edgy for my liking. I'm just imagining a water gun wrapped in tubing with a pentagonal nozzle that slowly winds up multiple shots through the tubing when you press the trigger.

Essentially this is an expansion of the concepts behind the Nozzlenoses. Both Nozzlenoses finish firing quickly after you tap ZR and have minimal end-lag, allowing you to have a near constant stream of bullets. My idea for this weapon is that firing takes time and you only need to press ZR once every few seconds. Upon pressing ZR the tubing wrapped around the shooter lights up as ink fills up through it. After 0.5 seconds of delay pressing ZR, 5 high power bullets shoot out over the course of 3 seconds. They're fast, travel far and you need 2 of them to deal lethal damage.

This weapons a high risk/ reward weapon, where you can't always control when you'll be able to shoot and is vulnerable to being sneak attacked, but can wreak havoc when played well.

More Main Weapons!:

Now that we're out of the way of the lengthy preamble that comes naturally when talking shooters, lets rapid fire a main weapon idea for the remaining classes!

Spring-Pop Dualies:

Dualies based off of pogo sticks! The Spring-Pop Dualies have similar damage and range to its cousins the Splat Dualies and Tetra Dualies, but with a unique dodge roll. While dodging on the ground, it rolls slowly and doesn't go very far, around half the distance of most Dualies, but dodge rolling mid-air causes you to fast-fall while moving the full distance of your roll (unlike other dualies that drop like stones) all the way to the ground and immediately bounce in the direction you tilted the L stick!

The Spring-Pop Dualies would only allow you to rebound upwards up to your max jump height so you can't get to areas that are normally inaccessible. It'd have 100% accuracy during its rolls and low damage fall off so shot spread and damage fall of don't hurt it as much while midair.

Tri-Fold Blaster:

A semi-automatic blaster! This blaster fires 3 blasts every time you press ZR, each with more range and less blast radius than the last.

The Tri-Fold Blaster's first shot would be lower range than the standard Blaster with a bigger blast radius, the final shot would have DOUBLE this range and half the blast radius, with the middle shot sitting right in between them in terms of range. They all deal the same damage, and you need 2 direct hits and an indirect hit to deal lethal damage.

This is a more supportive blaster design. It can be hard to get splats with, as a person in range of a direct from shot 1 will be far too close to easily get hit by shot 3, and person in range of shot 3 will be too far away from shot 1. It would excel in situations where enemies are running away, as these enemies would get hit by all 3 shots, but its mainly a blaster focused on getting assists, slightly better painting power and threatening chip damage in a large area.

Inkball Machine:

The Inkball Machine is a unique Splatling. It's a gumball machine with a huge chamber to fire inkballs. Unlike other Splatling's that that rapid-fire bullets, the Inkball Machine takes a long time to charge up and fires large bullets at a consistant rate of 3 bullets per second. These bullets explode on contact, dealing 12 damage on contact and 20 damage to enemies caught in the explosion, for a total of 32 damage per bullet to a target. This weapon even explodes when hitting terrain, so aim is less of a factor with the Inkball Machine, albeit it'll be a 5-shot splat if you only land explosion damage.

Hyper Stingler:

This weapon is actually inspired by a post I saw on reddit, designed by @steriskks and modelled + rendered by u/HiddenBlade2757 on reddit.

This weapon design is honestly perfect, full credits to the artists, (especially steriskk, look at their blog!!) and I'd only make 2 changes to the it's design. One, I'd remove the scope as 'gimmick' chargers tend not to have scopes, and two, the red cross is a protected symbol and having it in your game technically violates a Geneva Convention so it'd either have to be a different color or be replaced with the symbol of one of Splatoon's brands.

Mechanics wise, like the Snipewriter 5H, the Hyper Stingler tows the line between Splatling and Charger. Instead of firing a single long-ranged bullet, it charges to unleash a laser of ink that pierces targets (but not objects) and deals damage over time for a couple seconds. It would reach max range at ~67% charge, and charging past that point only serves to extend its uptime after releasing ZR. Its tapshot functions identically to other Chargers, except it can pierce targets.

I think this is my favourite name i've come up with for a Splatoon weapon. Hyper comes from 'Hypodermic' and Stingler comes from "Sting" and "Tingle", how you feel after getting a shot. I wanted to steer away from terms like Needle to keep a disconnect for younger players afraid of needles. I'm just happy how the name ended up!

Deep Sizzler:

The Deep Sizzler is a slosher based off of a deep fryer! It has 2 vertical trays to fling 2 clumps of ink side-by-side, and after the ink hits the ground it sizzles and explodes a second later similar to a Tri-Stringers bombs!

The Deep Sizzler is intended to be fast and mid-ranged with wide paint coverage, with a slower kill time than its cousins being a 3 shot kill. It's main draw is that the ink it flings can still explode and deal damage if an enemy covers it up, so it has a lot of threatening area denial!

Sickle Roller:

The Sickle Roller is a curved Roller! It's a segmented Roller, with 3 smaller brushes on a spoke to create a curved look. It rolls very slowly, but its flicks are fast and ink hungry. In fact, the Sickle Roller's vertical flick is even faster than its horizontal flick! Horizontal flicks fling ink very far in a diamond shaped pattern, ink from the middle Roller flicking the furthest and 2 more points landing behind it to its sides.

The Sickle Rollers vertical flicks are a bit more interesting, they fling 3 volleys of ink in quick succession, and moving while flicking allows you to curve and spread out the shot in a triangular pattern, similar to a Slosher's curved arcs!

Squeaky Brush:

The Squeaky Brush is a mop! This is a long ranged brush that sacrifices a bit of damage and speed for extra-long reach!

There really isn't much to say about this one, its pretty self explanatory.

Waxed Cari-Bow:

Stringers are an interesting class to design a new weapon for. Most other weapon classes have a core of 3 basic main weapons; a standard weapon (Splattershot, Splat Charger, Splat Roller) a lite weapon (Splattershot Jr., Squiffer, Carbon Roller) and a heavy weapon (Splattershot Pro, E-Liter 4K, Dynamo Roller).

In Splatoon 3's code, the Tri-Stringer is intended to be the standard Stringer. The Tri-Stringer is 'Stringer_Normal_00' and the REEF-LUX 450 is 'Stringer_Short_00'. So the logical next Stringer would be an even longer range, heavier Stringer!

Introducing the Waxed Cari-Bow! The Waxed Cari-Bow is a heavy Stringer with a scope! Like the name suggests, (Cari-Bow/ Caribou) This Stringer has antlers as the limbs of the bow! It fires 2 bullets side-by-side, like Dualies, meaning you can't get a direct hit by aiming at something at the centre of your screen (though jumping vertically aligns both shots in the centre of the screen).

The Waxed Cari-Bow fires heavy, slow bullets that explode on a 2/3rds charge or a full charge unlike its cousin the Tri-Stringer! It slightly outranges the E-Liter 4K, but has a similar lack of mobility and ink efficiency. It cannot hold its charge, as the weapon is always scoped.

Other kits for this weapon would change the 'Waxed' part of the name, such as the Lacquered Cari-Bow and the Glazed Cari-Bow.

Splatana:

With the Splatana, similar to the Brush and Stringer, it should get a heavy variant. I don't actually have a good idea for what this weapon could be based off of after hours of research into it. Stats-wise it'd just be a modified Splatana Stamper with more range, damage and charge time and less ink efficiency and speed, similar to other heavy weapons.

I'm sorry to leave this post on a low note with the Splatana but I really couldn't think of anything.

Please tell me your thoughts about my weapon ideas! <3

[anonthefold]

I just finished the main scenario for final fantasy rebirth and well... My trust in this team is 100%. I'm a sobbing mess right now. I feel like my core has been absolutely devastated. The way they handled probably the most iconic moment in video game history was nothing short of masterful.

The thing I love most about ffvii's story is that the stakes snowball so incredibly high that it feels almost like a new story. The journey is so fantastic it feels like a long D&D campaign. There are all these moments that are self contained from the main story that really just flesh out the lives of the characters. One of the things that plagued the original was the time/budget constraints which made the original team have to shorten really important parts of the game. They have spent SIGNIFICANTLY more time on fixing this issue. They also took into consideration all the media that came out after the initial game. The next game will be almost like a new story. Rufus and shinra kind of fell off disc 3 and with this iteration they are just as important to the main story and the other characters. We are getting a better fleshed out plot about Cloud where it was so fucking confusing and wrought with plot holes in the original. What is confusing now is intentional. It is meant to put the reader in the shoes of the heroes. They don't know what to expect, the ending is not clear to them. It makes you feel frustrated at times but that is what the characters are feeling too. It is so so so beautifully orchestrated.

Graphically nothing needs to be said other than it's just top tier visuals. Everything from the simplest of graphical effects to textures to the world is stunning. I played the game on a 65" 4k TV with on the graphic setting and honestly the frame rate didn't both me, even coming from 165fps on overwatch.

The soundtrack is rich and dynamic. Aerith's theme becomes a leitmotif in many of the story cutscenes compositions. The reinvisioning of the OST is stunning. On a couple of scores it didn't know what I was listening to until the original song pieces crept in. The score for the loveless play that we actually get to see is having me consider purchasing a physical release of the soundtrack.

I guess my two main concerns with the game are traversing the rocky world feels awkward sometimes. I'm sure it's the best they could compromise on given the engine and not spending a million hours rigging animations for every possible terrain. And the QTEs feel kind of out of place. I'd rather watch a cutscene personally. I don't need to hold down the shoulder buttons periodically to advance. I know they did it for the haptic feedback from the controller but it was unnecessary. Some of the NPCs voices felt piped through a modulator but that's to be expected when the game is pretty much fully voiced.

I look forward to the final installment of the game even if I have to wait 2+ years for it to be released.

[zephyrlee96]

Game Review #1

<Overwatch 2>

Overwatch is a highly addictive game that attracts the attention of people across the globe. With new content available almost every month, it is possible that many people will stop playing because of boredom. "Overwatch is a dead game," says many people about the game. This is probably because of the lack of smurf management, as well as toxicity among the community. People want overwatch to fix its game and claim that many heroes are "broken" or "overpowered." What could overwatch do to fix its game? How could they adjust the heroes to where no one would be overpowered? There is not a "perfect" game out there. There will always be that one hero or character that is considered broken.

Please leave answered and comments on what you believe can fix the game.

[wildissylupus]

Ok just saw this;

And first let me just say, I'm excited.

Now let's get into what I usually do, look to far into things.

First let's start off with where everyone is located;

The Junkers are obviously in Junkertown

Ana could probably be anywhere and we don't get many context clues from the background other than her fighting Omnics.

Hammond is at the Horizon Luna Colony, it was advertised with the initial announcement of the new short stories.

With Jack and Sombra it much of the same as Ana, not many context clues. My guess is that it takes place in Dorado or Cairo.

Same goes with Ashe but considering she doesn't really leave America my guess is that it takes place around there.

Kiriko and Hanzo are either in Hanamura or Kanezaka.

From what I've heard Lifeweaver and Sym are in the Atlantic Arcology.

Finally, Orisa is in Nimbani.

Now what do I think the main stories are going to be about?

I think a lot of them are going to tie in a lot of these characters to current events. Most of these characters are rouged after all, the only exceptions being Jack, Ana and Hammond's story. Cause I think those three stories are either flashbacks and/or just showing us they're reactions to the Invasion storyline.

Now my prediction for each story;

Junkers: I think it's going to show them getting involved with the Invasion storyline, or at least they're reaction to it. It could also be about Junkrat getting let back into Junkertown.

Ana: I think this is either her and Jacks reactions to the Invasion or the first warning signs of Null Sectors attack. It could also be Anubis being released again.

Hammond: Horizon Luna Colony flashback, probably Hammond's own experience on the Colony, maybe even some moments of Hammond and Winston being friends.

Jack and Sombra: I think this is going to take place right after "Hero", probably a flash back to when after the situation with Alejandra, Sombra offered Jack a deal/alliance of some kind which he initially refused, but after the reveal of Reyes being Reaper we're going to cut to after/during "Bastet" when Jack contacts Sombra and accepts her deal.

Ashe: This one I'm worried about and I'll talk about why in a separate post but I think this is going to be a robbery gone wrong along with the answer of which side Ashe is going to be on, Talon or Overwatch.

Hanzo and Kiriko: Family drama, Hanzo dealing with the fact that he didn't just hurt Genji but he hurt Kiriko by leaving, Kiriko finding out that Genji is alive. They're also probably fighting the Hashimoto.

Sym and Lifeweaver: Sym is in her Vishkar attire so I think she's been tasked with bring Niran back, probably also stealing his Biolight tech. This could also be when she finally turns on Vishkar and joining Overwatch with Lifeweaver.

Orisa: Her recruitment into Overwatch and how she, along with Numbani itself, are handling Null Sector. Possibly a rematch between Orisa and Doomfist as well.

I'll probably make separate posts for more details on what I think each story is about but for now here are my thoughts.

[cooplagoop]

Coop rants about the (im)possible Overwatch Netflix series

So in a recent interview (9th of November 2023) with the executive producer Jared Neuss Gamespot asked him about the possibility of an Overwatch animated Netflix series and he just gave the vaguest answer and tries to obviously deflect the topic.

It feels like he wanted to say no, there is no Netflix series and there never will be, but didn't want to upset fans who have been practically begging for this animated show since 2017.

Even if Overwatch got a Netflix series there's the question of what or who would it be about? The game has nearly 40 heroes. How would the Netflix series relate to pve?

The easiest route the Netflix series could go is to follow the original strike team fighting in the first Omnic crisis, however that version of Overwatch was not led by bootleg Captain America, but by a brown Latino and Ana wasn't a support or mother at that time, so they'd actually have to write her character as well as include Jack and Vincent's romance since the Declassified book stated that they met during the crisis.

Basically Blizzard has to actually write about poc and gay people. The two things they don't want to do the most judging from how little queerness they allow Soldier 76 to display, how they never confirm wether Reyes is Mexican or some other Latino ethnicity just give us hints about it and how Ana is often times shelved in favour of other characters (mostly male; Cassidy, Soldier) while the writers pretend like they wrote a 30 page essay fleshing out her character when they did no such thing.

So route A is a not happening outside of fanfiction.

Route B is to have one-off animated episodes of varying lenght focusing on one or two heroes in specific.

Blizzard already does route B with their cinematics. However they're always under 10 minutes which seems to be a general rule with their cinematics.

If they started making episodes on Netflix they'd no longer have to oblige by the 10 minute rule. More episode time = more story which is what fans have always wanted.

However, this also means more investment,more manpower, more resources, more of the writing staff not writing Pve (which is in the game while the Netflix series is not).

In layman's terms greedy execs don't want to give anyone anymore money than they are legally required to, not the dev team, not Netflix and certanly not some 3rd party animation studio on top of it all.

As much as I want a Netflix series and more story content, Jared Neuss has the most realistic idea of just focusing on the game.

It's just not going to happen without unionizing. The devs are already streached thin with both making content for each season of the battlepass, hero balancing, pve writing, developing new event game modes like Trials of Sanctuary and Concert Clash etc etc

I doubt it will get better when Bobby Kotick leaves after 2023 ends as AAA videogame company CEOs are scum one way or the other.

But there is always hope. Sag-aftra writers were able to reach their goals recently. So maybe someday soon, the employees of the videogame industry will do the same.