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Ashe (and B.O.B.) - United States

Elizabeth Caledonia "Calamity" Ashe

"I'm the last one you'll ever cross."

Species: Human
Age: 39 (1), 41 (2)
Birthday: October 1st
Occupation: Gang Leader
Base of Operations: Deadlock Gorge, Arizona (Route 66)
Affiliation: Deadlock Rebels Gang
Appearances (shorts): Reunion, Ashe Origin Story, Roadtrip (focus)

"My business, my rules."

Voiced by: Jennifer Hale (English)^note Other Languages:Alejandra Delint (Latin American Spanish), Meiko Kawasaki (Japanese), Moon-yeong Sa (Korean), Olivia Nicosia (French), Nana Spier (German), Mabel Cezar (Brazillian Portuguese), Anna Wodzyńska (Polish), Victoria Pivko (Russian)

Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe grew up surrounded with privilege, with a wealthy family offering her much opportunity to succeed. However, her parents paid little attention to her, often leaving her in the care of their omnic butler, B.O.B., and soon she crossed paths with local ruffian Cole Cassidy. After being involved in an impromptu string of crimes together, she recognized the thrill of outwitting her targets and getting away with it as her calling, setting her up on the outlaw path.

Along with the founders of the Deadlock Gang, Ashe started to make a bigger name for herself with increasingly extravagant heists across the American Southwest, while also getting into increasingly violent encounters with various other criminal organizations. After years of bloodshed, she seized the opportunity to grow influence over all, managing to rally the gangs to work together (or at least, not against each other) under her principles: keep your word, don’t work with the law, respect each other’s territory, and always punish betrayal.

With petty gang conflict no longer being in her priorities, Ashe is free to fully establish herself through audacious heists and operations leading the Deadlock Gang across the American Southwest, earning herself a spot on the top of the authorities' most-wanted lists and cementing her status as an outlaw legend.

Ashe is a damage character who uses a wide arsenal to disrupt and take out her enemies.

• Her primary weapon is The Viper, a lever-action rifle that fires quick shots. Ashe can aim down its sights for more-than-doubled damage and precision at the cost of a slower fire rate.
• With Dynamite, she can toss out one that triggers either after a delay or if she shoots it herself, dealing explosive damage that also burns enemies over time.
• Coach Gun is a close-range weapon which not only knocks back enemies, but also propels Ashe backwards for added mobility.
• B.O.B. is Ashe's ultimate, where she summons her trusted omnic butler to charge at the enemy, flinging any foes standing in his way into the air on impact, and gunning down whoever is near him. He also counts as a secondary player, allowing him to contest points and receive buffs.

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• Badass Biker: In contrast to Cassidy mostly pure a Cowboy archetype, Ashe's design is equal parts "western gunslinger" and "biker gang leader". She has a hovering chopper, though Cassidy appropriates it after besting her.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: She wears western-style suit and is a gang leader.
• Badass Longcoat: A sleeveless duster that blends into her vest.
• Badass Normal: She's a regular human with a talent for firearms.
• Bait-and-Switch: In a meta example, Reunion did very little to imply that Ashe was a new hero to be announced at the short's premiere, with Echo appearing to be set up as a new major character to be involved with Overwatch. While she was slated to eventually be a hero, the new playable hero announcement instead went to Ashe.
• Becoming the Costume:
  • Ashe's "Warlock" skin gives her several more fantasy-oriented lines, referencing the likes of fire, brimstone, and other supernatural elements. In addition, she now refers to B.O.B. as "Beelzebob", her loyal demon.
  • Her "Interstellar Smuggler" skin reflects her characterization in the Space Opera-themed Starwatch, tweaking much of her voice lines to be based more around space and space travel, including her hero selection line as "I'm the last space smuggler you'll ever cross."
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between her and Cassidy, to the point that lead writer Michael Chu compared it to ex-lovers sniping at each other.
  Ashe: Jesse McCree… been a while. You'd promised you'd write.
• Berserk Button: Cassidy's mere existence seems to get on her nerves more often than not, likely due to the pair going down different paths in life after their initial operations with the Deadlock Gang.
• Blown Across the Room: Her Coach Gun has a lot of kick to it, and anything hit by it will be pushed away several meters. Conversely, similar to the Scout's Force-a-Nature, she will also be thrown back after firing, allowing her to reach places she would normally be unable to reach.
• Boring, but Practical: Blizzard created Ashe after realizing that nearly all of their post-release characters were the type that relied on their unique passives and abilities with cooldowns to be effective. While Ashe's abilities are very useful, the vast bulk of her power comes from her gun.
• Born in the Wrong Century: Much like Cole Cassidy, she looks, sounds and acts like she belongs in a western.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: She started fighting and rebelling to get revenge on her neglectful parents.
• The Bully: Many sprays depicting her childhood present her as one. "Playground Victory", for instance, has her standing triumphantly over two defeated classmates◊, and her "Trick or Treat" Halloween 2019 spray shows her stealing candy from a crying child with B.O.B.'s help◊.
  • Though not as apparent in her adult years, there's a very evident "schoolyard bully" energy to the way she mocks Lúcio's rollerskates. Though, granted, at least most of the time, it would be a bad idea to, as she puts it, wear rollerskates to a shootout.
• Coin Walk Flexing: Her Bullet Walk Highlight Intro demonstrates her dexterity by showing her knuckle rolling a rifle cartridge.
• Cool Mask: Her weekly challenge Mardi Gras skin gives her a stylish eye mask.
• Curse Cut Short: Subverted in that she doesn't actually curse. In the Reunion cinematic, Cassidy catches her by surprise by throwing a belt full of grenades at her.
  Ashe: Ohhhhhh SHOO-(BOOM)
• Cute Monster Girl: Her "Warlock" skin turns her into this. Even with the massive horns and paler complexion, she looks more sexy than scary. The thigh high boots and leotard certainly helps.
• Damage Over Time: Her dynamite causes fire damage to anyone who survives the initial explosion.
• Dark Action Girl: Not nearly to the extent of the Talon-aligned women (she's more of a thief than a murderess, and she genuinely cares for her gang and Bob), but she's ruthless and a skilled highwaywoman.
• Dark Is Evil: As stated above, she's not quite over the deep end like the Talon women. Regardless, she's still a notorious criminal who is cloaked head to toe in black.
• Dartboard of Hate: Ashe mentions she has a picture of Cassidy on her dartboard.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Ashe was announced as being a "super high-mechanical skill" hero, and unlike other post-release Damage heroes Sombra and Doomfist, who focus on their abilities, Ashe focuses primarily on her weapon and making every shot count. This is best shown by how she handles her Dynamite; a clumsy shot will fail to capitalize on its tremendous damage potential, but one who knows when and where to toss it will be able to burn away a TON of the enemy team's health, making them ripe for eliminating.
• The Dividual: Ashe and B.O.B. are two very separate characters in their own rights, but with B.O.B. serving as Ashe's personal bodyguard and Assist Character ultimate, the two are rarely seen apart and in-game are treated as a duo.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: She gives Cassidy several chances to walk away before resorting to violence, and later even gives him a chance to surrender. During The Stinger as she's still tied up to the payload, she sulks about how she probably should've just shot him on sight.
• Early-Bird Cameo: By technicality, the Reunion cinematic was aired right before Ashe's official announcement video at Blizzcon 2018. This means that the cinematic focuses on Cassidy, and only happened to introduce her as a character to the franchise.
• Easter Egg: While unlikely to occur normally unless you're extremely unlucky, it's possible for B.O.B. to be summoned and not be able to find or fire at a single enemy before he expires. If this happens, Ashe has several lines chewing him out as he leaps away (including an especially rare line only exclusive to her "Warlock" skin):
  Ashe: B.O.B., I have had it with you!
  Warlock Ashe: Ugh! That is the laziest demon in all Damnation!
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She treats the Deadlock Gang as the family she never had, and despite the bad blood between them, she still has an old photo of herself and Cassidy together.
• Evil Counterpart: To Cassidy. Both were Born in the Wrong Century by being The Gunslinger in a futuristic setting, both are generally Badass Normals in a cast full of enhanced individuals, both use hand-thrown explosives in battle (Cassidy uses a flashbang grenade, Ashe uses a stick of dynamite), and both were founding members of the Deadlock Gang. However, Cassidy turned his back on the gang and became a part of Blackwatch in order to atone for his crimes, in contrast to Ashe, who continues leading the gang in the present day and embraces her status as an outlaw.
• Evil Is Hammy: You can clearly tell that Jennifer Hale had a ton of fun voicing Ashe.
• Flower Motifs: She seems to have a rose motif. She has a rose and thorn tattoo on her inner right forearm, stretching from elbow to wrist. Her "Thorn" skin also decorates B.O.B. with roses and gives him a large emblem of a rose on his back. "Mobster" also gives the pair rose decorations. This even extends to her generic skin recolors as they come with names like "Sunflower" and "Tansy" among others.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Somewhat implied in the cinematic. While it's not clear if she's personally responsible for B.O.B.'s upkeep and maintenance, she does threaten to rebuild him and have him rip off Cassidy's other arm near the end.
• Glass Cannon: Ashe's burst damage is fearsome in the right hands, but with only 200 HP, limited mobility and no recovery options, she'll go down in a hurry if the player isn't careful.
• Guns Akimbo: She primarily uses a lever-action rifle, but she has a sawed-off shotgun for her secondary use as an ability.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: Her Viper lever-action rifle is seen self-cycling its action when fired outside of aim mode. The action is manually worked only when fired in aim mode.
• Gun Fu: Ashe primarily uses firearms and can launch herself into the air by using her sawed-off shotgun.
• Gun Nut: She learned how to use guns at an early age and never stopped.
• The Gunslinger: She uses a lever-action rifle and a sawed-off shotgun as her weapons of choice.
• Gun Twirling: She makes a habit of doing the classic lever-action twirl.
• Hair-Trigger Explosive: Ashe can throw a bundle of dynamite and shoot it to cause a massive explosion.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: She's a bit on the irritable side, more prone to shouting informally at her own teammates or being verbally frustrated with a certain level of childlike immaturity.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Not that Ashe is necessarily short, but standing◊ next to B.O.B. forms this relation. The top of her hat falls just shy of his chin.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Ashe can be damaged by her own dynamite if she's not far enough away. The explosion does 75 damage and the burn damage is another 100 after that. Ashe herself only has 200 HP.
  • Using Coach Gun in the wrong place at the wrong time can land Ashe in really hot waters, usually off of a cliff or into an enemy's killzone.
• Horned Humanoid: Her "Warlock" skin gives her a massive pair of black dragon horns.
• It's Personal: Was one of the Deadlock Gang's founding members, and seems to have it out for Cassidy for deserting them and for later foiling her train heist.
• The Lad-ette: She's a bit of a tomboy. She also got in trouble at school for fighting two boys.
• Last-Name Basis: Despite having the nickname "Calamity", Ashe seems to be more well-known by her last name. Her addition means Cassidy is no longer the only character identified mainly by their last name.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Despite Cassidy and Ashe having no romantic history between each other. At best, they had a complicated relationship while Cassidy was in the gang. The relationship currently resembles a divorced couple sniping each other after a sour separation.
  Ashe: Brave of you to show your face around here, Jesse.
  Cassidy: Well, I know how much you missed me. Still have a picture of me at the hideout, I hear.
  Ashe: On the dartboard.
  Cassidy: Bet you look at it everyday. Flattering, really.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Compared to Moira, Widowmaker and Doomfist, Ashe is considerably more light-hearted in terms of attitude and motivation, despite being an outlaw.
• Little Red Fighting Hood: Her Little Red skin invokes this complete with an axe on the end of her rifle, Rugged Scar over her left eye, and her stick of dynamite now replicating a basket of goodies.
• Lonely Rich Kid: One of the first things we see of her in the origin story trailer has her sitting alone at a table during her birthday party, with only B.O.B. by her side. It's part of why she created the Deadlock gang — they were more like a family than her parents ever were.
• Mechanically Unusual Fighter:
  • B.O.B. effectively acts as a 7th party member. He cannot be directly controlled, but he has 1200 HP and can be killed. He can also be healed, buffed or debuffed (things like Ana's Nano-Boost, Sleep Dart, or Biotic Grenade function normally with him), and can capture or control objective points. The developers stated that in an overtime scenario where the enemy gets a team kill on you, if Ashe summons B.O.B. right before she dies, and he kills all the enemy players, your team would win the match.
  • In a less drastic case, Ashe's Viper behaves in a few unique ways:
    • While all other weapons that require reloading replenish all of their ammo in one action, the Viper is reloaded round-by-round, meaning that reload time is dependent on how many rounds are needed to fill up the magazine tube.
    • Similar to Hanzo's bow, you can't keep firing by holding the attack button down; you can only continue to shoot by tapping the button.
• Misery Button: Being ignored when she addresses someone brings her down, which stems from her neglect in the past by her parents.
• Named After Somebody Famous: Her title as "Calamity" is a clear reference to Calamity Jane.
• Never My Fault: The post credit scene from Reunion has her blaming B.O.B. for failing the mission.
  Ashe: "Really nice going, B.O.B."
• Oh, Crap!: When Cassidy throws a belt of primed grenades in her direction, she has this reaction.
• Outlaw: She's the leader of the Deadlock Gang, and is responsible for the train heist on Route 66.
• Parental Neglect: Her parents took a fairly hands-off approach because of their work, opting to have B.O.B. raise her for most of her life. One of the shots in her origin trailer is a young Ashe sitting completely alone at her own birthday party. Apparently, they gave Ashe every opportunity to make a good life through a top-grade education, but Ashe acted out instead and got worse from there.
• Pet the Dog: Despite her treatment of B.O.B, she does value his loyalty and is entertained when D.va tells her that she finds B.O.B cute and tells her that she'll pass this on to him.
  Ashe: I can always count on you Bob!
• Pink Means Feminine: The coat of her Socialite skin is colored a bright pink as well as a matching gun and dynamite now resembling a clutch purse. It's her most feminine skin by far and implied to be a canon outfit due to it dropping during the Storm Rising event.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Sports a nice chignon in her "Socialite" skin, completing her upperclassman look.
• Promoted to Playable: A behind-the-scenes example. Ashe was originally developed solely for Reunion, but at some point, the development team fell in love with her and B.O.B. so much that they decided to make her a playable hero.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Not by default, but her "Warlock" skin gives her ghost white skin and short black hair.
• Recoil Boost: Her Coach Gun has quite a kick to it and propels her backwards when fired. Enterprising players can use to propel her into the air by shooting the ground.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Ashe's default costume is primarily black, while her eyes and tie in tandem act as red accents.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Betraying or abandoning the Deadlock Gang marks the offender for death, in Ashe's view. One of her lines when she kills Cassidy is:
  "There's only one way you get to leave the gang!"
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Has red eyes and is the violent and ruthless leader of an outback gang of outlaws.
• Riches to Rags: She was part of a wealthy family, but abandoned them with B.O.B. for the sake of rebelling.
• The Roaring '20s: One of Ashe's concept designs made her look too much like a mobster. While this wasn't the look they were going for, they decided to roll with that and design a 20's gangster concept design for a legendary skin. B.O.B. changes into a goon as well.
• Sarcastic Clapping: Her "Slow Clap" emote has her do this, complete with dramatically faking out her third clap.
• Sawed-Off Shotgun: Her secondary weapon.
• Sore Loser: She belts out a tantrum and screams out after Cassidy when the train job goes wrong. Ashe even slaps the hat off of B.O.B.'s head!
• Space Western: While neither the character nor the setting are Space Western, Ashe and her gang fit the aesthetic. They're dressed in a style that looks like a mix of Western and modern fashion, and some members of the gang are advanced robots with artificial intelligence.
• Tattooed Crook: She has multiple tattoos on her forearm, the most recognizable being the Deadlock Gang emblem.
• The Tragic Rose: She has a rose motif and her past is defined by the neglect from her parents. This turned her into a powerful gang leader, who learned to be self-reliant.
• Throw Down the Bomblet: Ashe can throw down a bundle of Dynamite to blow her enemies up on top of setting them ablaze.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She's quite a rough and tumble tomboy but even she fancies a good cup of tea with surprising elegance and her Socialite skin is entirely pink with a fur trim coat and dynamite turned into a small, pink purse.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Ashe deeply values loyalty to the gang and incorporated a rule that treachery must always be punished. She hates Cassidy for betraying the gang by joining Blackwatch for a lighter punishment.
• Tsundere: Type A variant towards Cassidy. She's quick to remind Cassidy that she hates him and yet still has an old photo of them playing a game of cards on her bike as a personal memento. B.O.B. even seems aware of this.
  Ashe: Ugh, I hate that guy...
  B.O.B.: [staring silently]
  Ashe: What are you lookin' at?!
• Unwitting Pawn: Cassidy manipulated Ashe into stealing Echo so he can reactivate her and rejoin Overwatch.
• Villain Protagonist: She leads the Deadlock Gang, yet she's one of the playable characters.
• Villainous Valor: She is a big believer in Honor Among Thieves, so betrayal in any form is a capital offense in her eyes.
• Waistcoat of Style: Her apparel.
• "Wanted!" Poster: Her "Wanted" spray, reading "WANTED Dead or Alive: Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe, $65,000,000 reward."
• Water Guns and Balloons: Her Poolside skin has her weapons resembling water guns and water balloons.
• We Used to Be Friends: She and Cassidy were once friends during his Deadlock days. The relationship has currently soured to a point where they get into a gunfight in "Reunion" after he joined Blackwatch instead of going to jail.
  Ashe: We're pretty busy ourselves, so it's awful convenient you showin' up today.
  Cassidy: Yeah… You've never been one to shy away from a good tip.
  Ashe: Hey! We worked hard for this score. You best move on now.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Her hair is as white as it comes, but she's the leader of the Deadlock Gang, and she'll gladly hurt anyone who crosses her.
• William Telling: One of the potential Highlight Intros you can get for Ashe during Summer Games 2020 has her shoot an apple off of B.O.B.'s head.

Big Omnic Butler (or Big Omnic Bodyguard) / B.O.B.

Species: Omnic
Age: ??
Occupation: Gang Muscle/Ashe's butler
Base of Operations: Deadlock Gorge, Arizona (Route 66)
Affiliation: Deadlock Rebels Gang
Appearances (shorts): Reunion, Ashe Origin Story, Roadtrip
->Voiced by: None

Ashe's ult — and loyal Robot Butler — a hulking brute of an omnic who has been at Ashe's side since childhood. He serves as to charge forward and knock enemies up in the air, who then lays down additional suppressing fire from his arm cannons. While not playable, he serves as a seventh NPC party member who boasts 1200 HP. He can also be slept or nano-boosted by Ana, healed, and also captures and contests objectives.

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• Ambiguously Evil: He is with the Deadlock Gang, but he only gets violent under Ashe's orders and he primarily joined the gang out of loyalty to her.
• Arm Cannon: B.O.B. has a three-barreled Gatling blaster that deploys from inside each arm, and alternates between firing them when summoned.
• Assist Character: When summoned, he functionally serves as an extra unit for the team for up to 12 seconds.
• Battle Butler: He served as the family butler, but Ashe brought him into The Deadlock Gang. They even have a "Tea Time" spray that properly shows him as this. Ashe’s Socialit skin from the Storm Rising event dresses B.O.B. in a fancy blue suit and monocle that adds to this trope, and he also gets a player icon of him wearing the monocle that’s actually called Butler. The Deadlock Rebels Chapter 1 revealed that he left the Caledonia family to join the war, when it was over, he returned to work for the Caledonias, specifically for Ashe's sake.
• The Big Bad Wolf: Ashe's Little Red skin, in addition to turning her into a Little Red Fighting Hood, turns B.O.B into an Omnic version of the Big Bad Wolf (complete with grandmotherly nightgown and cap) to go with it.
• The Big Guy: Serves as this for the Deadlock Gang.
• Beleaguered Assistant: He's not as violent or fearless as the other members and will only attack upon Ashe's command. He was also originally Ashe's butler.
• Dastardly Dapper Derby: B.O.B. wears a tiny little derby on his head to accent his handlebar moustache.
• Dash Attack: His initial move when summoned is to rush forward, similarly to Reinhardt.
• Dynamic Entry: Calling B.O.B. results in him spawning by slamming into the ground immediately, where he rushes forward and knocks every hostile opponent into his path away until he slams into an obstacle.
• Elite Mook: He serves as one for Ashe's team, equipped with a Gatling gun inside his wrists.
• Everyone Has Standards: B.O.B was disgusted by the Caledonia family's neglect of Ashe and chose to remain in their service so Ashe can, at least, have someone who cares for her.
• Eye Take: B.O.B.'s eyes are the only things that indicate an emotion from him. When he's focused or angry, he narrows his eyelids. When he's being snarky, he rolls his eyes.
• Face of a Thug: In spite of looking like a mechanized brute, B.O.B. is far more level-headed than his mistress, and one of their mutual sprays depicts him delicately pouring tea. In Overwatch 2, D.VA calls him cute.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: One of his primary attacks is to bum-rush into his enemies, dealing heavy damage and tossing them into the air on impact.
• Fun with Acronyms: According to Michael Chu, "B.O.B." can alternatively stand for "Big Omnic Butler" or "Big Omnic Bodyguard", or even "B.O.B. the Omnic Butler".
• Gatling Good: His primary weapon for when he's not directly charging enemies, with firepower roughly comparable to Torbjörn's turret.
• Graceful Loser: B.O.B. doesn't give much of a reaction to Cassidy separating his head and limbs.
• Heavily Armored Mook: B.O.B.'s sheer bulk gives him a tremendous amount of HP.
• Impact Silhouette: The "Outline" spray shows B.O.B. charging through a wall, leaving a silhouette of both him and his bowler derby hat.
• Improbable Weapon User: In Reunion, he rips a signpost out of the ground to fight Cassidy with, but only gets to use it to block his bullets before pulling out the big guns.
• The Juggernaut: Another downplayed example. He'll toss anything short of a charging Reinhardt or Doomfist in his way when he starting charging in, though he can be stunned by crowd control abilities. And while he can be brought down in a fight, it's going to take a lot of firepower to do so.
• Just Following Orders: He's an omnic who only follows Ashe's commands. In Reunion, he only shoots Cassidy on Ashe's orders and only uses the signpost to shield her. Cassidy's aware of this and holds no grudge against him for it (Michael Chu confirmed that unlike him and Ashe, they get along just fine), and he even apologizes to him for blasting his head off and realigns his hat for him.
  Cassidy: Sorry about that, B.O.B. No hard feelings?
• The Lancer: He's Ashe's bodyguard and muscle.
• Losing Your Head: In the "Reunion" short, Cassidy's grenade attack blasts his head and several other limbs off of his body. Given his lack of facial expression, it's hard to tell if he's bothered by it.
• Mr. Fanservice: He's the first Omnic character to be designed with muscles and his vest is unbuttoned to show his physique. D.va also calls him cute, something Ashe takes notice of and tells her that she'll tell B.O.B her compliment.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: His loyalty to Ashe.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: He's only part of The Deadlock Gang for Ashe's sake and he only shoots Cassidy when Ashe demands him to do so.
• Odd Friendship: He and Cassidy do respect each other, but B.O.B. has to fight him under Ashe's orders.
  Cassidy: And how's B.O.B.?
  Ashe: He's just fine. Thank you for your concern.
• Old Retainer: B.O.B chose to stay with the Caledonias, for Ashe's sake.
• One Head Taller: Compared to Ashe, to help visualize their partnership.
• Parental Substitute: He was this to Ashe while she was growing up, since her parents were too busy to raise her.
• Perpetual Expression: His eyes are the only thing indicating an emotion. When he narrows his eyelids, then he's angry or focused. He also rolls his eyes at Ashe when she rants to him about Cassidy.
• Punny Name: His name is B.O.B. and he communicates with gestures such as blinking, but doesn't speak outwardly. In other words, he's Silent B.O.B.
• Robot Butler: His original occupation was the Ashe family butler. Now, he just follows Ashe wherever.
• Say My Name: Ashe's callout for her ult.
  Ashe: B.O.B.! DO SOMETHING!
• Servile Snarker: He's primarily mute but capable of a few snarky glances and gestures.
• The Silent Bob: He's speechless and the muscle of the gang. Extra points for actually being named B.O.B..
• Silent Snarker: B.O.B.'s only response to Ashe's ranting about their failed train job is to roll his eyes and make some disinterested glances.
• Sleeves Are for Wimps: B.O.B.'s attire is a sleeveless, fur collar jacket. He's also the muscle for the Deadlock gang.
• The Speechless: If B.O.B. can speak at all, he elects not to. It's possible he doesn't even have a mouth under his metal moustache.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Maybe. While his Arm Cannons are suggested to be a recent addition, he was already a massive hulking presence.
• Sweat Drop: A reference to the "Reunion" cinematic, the "Sweat" spray shows B.O.B. with a comically oversized sweatdrop of oil.
• Took a Level in Badass: Cassidy notices this in the cinematic, though it's not clear as to what sort of upgrades he's talking about.
  Cassidy: Looks like B.O.B.'s got himself some upgrades.
• Undying Loyalty: He takes any order from Ashe without hesitation.
• Vague Age: Since he was with Ashe while she was very young and is now with her into her late thirties with the novel Deadlock Rebels confirming he was created before the Omnic Crisis, so he's at least in his twenties or thirties.

Bastion - ???

SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54 / Bastion

(thoughtful beeps)

Species: Omnic
Age: 30 (1), 32 (2)
Birthday: Unknown
Occupation: Battle Automaton
Base of Operations: Unknown
Affiliation: None
Appearances (shorts): The Last Bastion (focus)
Appearances (comics): "Binary" (focus)

(beeping noises)

Voiced by: Chris Metzen

Originally created for peacekeeping purposes, Bastion robot units possessed the unique ability to rapidly reconfigure themselves into an assault-cannon mode. During the Omnic Crisis, they were turned against their human makers, forming the bulk of the omnics' rebel army. Following the resolution of the crisis, nearly all of them were destroyed or disassembled. To this day, Bastion units still symbolize the horrors of the conflict.

One unique Bastion unit, severely damaged in the final battles of the war, was left forgotten for over a decade. It lay dormant, exposed to the elements and rusting while nature slowly reclaimed it. Overgrown with vines and roots and nested upon by small animals, the robot sat inert, seemingly unaware of the passing of time. That was until one fateful day, when it unexpectedly reactivated. With its combat programming all but lost, it instead displayed an intense curiosity about the natural world and its inhabitants. This inquisitive Bastion unit set out to explore its surroundings and discover its purpose on a war-ravaged planet.

Though "Bastion" appears to be gentle — even harmless, at times — its core combat programming takes over when the unit senses danger, utilizing its entire arsenal to eliminate anything it perceives as a threat. This has led to instances of conflict with the few humans it has encountered, and has driven it to avoid populated areas in favor of the wild, uncharted regions of the world.

Bastion is a Damage character who can switch between different modes to focus either on mobility or damage.

• Ironclad is a passive ability that reduces damage taken while in Sentry or Artillery mode.
• Reconfigure allows Bastion to switch between two modes: Configuration: Recon, which allows Bastion to move around normally and attack with a submachine gun that fires steady bursts of bullets at mid-range, and Configuration: Assault, which morphs Bastion into a slow-moving tank with a devastating rotary cannon with much higher firing speed and bullet spread.
• A-36 Tactical Grenade can be fired in either Recon or Assault configurations, launching a grenade that explodes after colliding with an enemy or bouncing off a wall.
• Configuration: Artillery, Bastion's ultimate ability, makes it hunker down in place as it takes aim across the map, allowing it to fire up to three airstrikes onto any area in a massive range.

Previous Abilities

• Self-Repair allowed Bastion to rapidly repair itself for health in the midst of combat, reworking on a resource bar that recharged when not in use.
• Configuration: Tank, its former ultimate, morphed Bastion into a small tank armed with a long-range cannon that fired devastating explosive shells that blast enemies in a wide radius.

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• Activation Sequence: Has a short one when Ganymede inadvertently wakes it up. Its systems begin powering up, then its external scanners light up, and it finally pulls itself from the moss and dirt that has been accumulating for years and years.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Was a member of a line of Bastion units that were built for peacekeeping purposes, but they ended up participating in the Omnic Crisis on the omnic side.
• The Aloner: Since its few encounters with humans have led to the activation of its combat programming, it avoids populated areas and prefers to live in the wilderness. The "Binary" comic shows that Torbjörn has since adopted Bastion. He can tell from a glance that there's something different about its programming, but he has no intention of letting it out of his sight, just in case it reverts to its combat mode.
• Anti-Armor: To compensate for other buffs, the February 2017 patch made Configuration: Sentry Powerful, but Inaccurate and unable to get headshots. This shifted it from a general-purpose weapon to one focused more on tearing apart Tanks and especially shields. Its DPS is so ridiculously high that even Reinhardt's fully-charged barrier will be shattered in a few seconds. It doesn't work nearly as well against D.Va, however, as her Defense Matrix's durability is based on how long it's used rather than how much damage it soaks up. Zig-Zagged with Zarya, as her barriers cause her to grow stronger upon taking damage, but they still have a limit that Bastion can easily mow down through along with Zarya herself.
• Anti-Frustration Features: It takes half as much time for Bastion to switch from Sentry mode to Recon mode compared to the other way round; all the better to dodge incoming attacks or projectiles.
• Arm Cannon: Bastion has a machine gun in place of a right arm.
• Ascended Meme: Bastion's "Pirate Ship" skin is based off the popular "pirate ship" tactic used in several payload maps, where Bastion would bunker onto the cart in sentry form, keeping it pushing while the rest of its team protects it, including a tank like Orisa or Reinhardt to create a shield as its "sail".
• Attack Its Weak Point: Bastion in its recon form takes double damage when shot in the head like most other heroes, but when it shifts into its assault mode, it tucks its head in, only to reveal another weakness: a glowing blue brick sticking out its back, making it vulnerable to flankers.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Bastion as a turret has bar none some of the most powerful base DPS out of any hero in the game, able to mow down even tanks with relative ease. However, the fact that it's completely immobile while doing so is a huge weakness even with its self-healing ability, making Bastion a mostly situational hero, commonly used against opponents who don't know how to fight it or as a last-ditch surprise pick. This has since been changed in the sequel, as it can now move at a reduced speed, but as a tradeoff it can no longer heal itself.
• Balance Buff:
  • In anticipation for Overwatch 2, Bastion received a drastic overhaul to give it more of a purpose than simply hunkering down in one area as a sentry: Its Self-Repair and Configuration: Tank ultimate were removed entirely, but in return, its Recon form was made to be more reliable and comes with a Tactical Grenade as a momentary burst of damage, and its Sentry form merged with the Tank form, now turning Bastion into a mobile gatling gun on treads, albeit a slow-moving one with reduced damage, and a lengthy delay between transformations. As for its ultimate, Bastion's new Configuration: Artillery allows it to fire up to three mortar strikes from across the map.
  • Bastion received a much more modest rework in February 2017 which was intended to restabilize the power from its wildly destructive Sentry form and near-perfunctory Recon form. Self-Repair was allowed to be used on the go while limited by a resource meter^note Originally, it could work indefinitely until Bastion took any damage, which meant that all enemies had to do was lightly scratch it and knock it out, the accuracy of its Recon gun was improved, and the Sentry form was tweaked to make it more of a long-ranged tank/shield-breaker tool^note Mainly by giving it a wider spread and no headshot damage, but also giving it some flat Damage Reduction while transformed. Unfortunately, this wasn't really seen as enough to keep it from being overspecialized, hence the Overwatch 2 rework.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Though usually friendly and peaceful, its combat programming still surfaces when provoked, turning it into a merciless killing machine.
• BFG: Bastion actually IS a giant gun, and comes in two flavors: a a mobile tank form that fires a Gatling turret, and an Ultimate in the shape of a stationary artillery cannon that fires explosive shots.
• Boring, but Practical: Bastion's Recon form might not be flashy with its standard machine-gun fire, but it's fairly accurate and reliable, comparable to Soldier: 76's weapon. Its Sentry form can also count, as while it's not very accurate over a long distance, it can't critical-hit, and it renders Bastion immobile, it's remarkably effective at mowing down large tanks and their shields.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Mixed with Gameplay and Story Segregation, as seen in its short. In-game, a lone Bastion can mow down an entire team with ease if they don't know what they're doing, able to easily take down any targets advancing towards it. In The Last Bastion, a Crusader is able to easily destroy multiple Bastions with a single Fire Strike, a move not even powerful enough to kill one Bastion in the game. Then again, the self-aware Bastion is a very unusual specimen of its model, and the Crusader in question was Balderich, the leader of their order and one of their strongest fighters.
• Cranial Processing Unit: In Recon form, it clearly has a head that takes double damage just like any human character. In Sentry form, its head folds down and its weak point changes to a glowing blue block that sticks out the back (its power core, which stays tucked away in its chest in recon mode). In The Last Bastion, when Bastion encounters a wreckage of other Bastion-series robots, it scans the head for its memories.
• Cooldown Hug: Ganymede essentially does this at the end of The Last Bastion when it places a stick on its friend's arm, snapping the omnic out of its murderous programming and leading it back to the forest where it can be at peace.
• Cute Machines: When it's not fighting, Bastion is downright huggable and generally hard to dislike. Even when it is, it tends to make rather cute beeping noises.
• Cyber Cyclops: It sees the world through a vertical slit.
• Damage Reduction: Bastion's Ironclad passive allows it to take less damage while as a sentry or a tank. Combined with its self-healing ability, it's able to endure a lot of damage very easily. The downside is that it can't dodge and is reliant on its team to protect it.
• A Dog Named "Dog": "Bastion" is the name of its model series, and the character itself. This Bastion is the Last of Its Kind, so at least it won't get confused for another Bastion.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In the short, Bastion is gentle to everything it comes across. However, upon seeing or hearing something that reminds it of its past and the Omnic Crisis, its battle-based instincts take over.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Its "Overgrown" skin was released way before it was shown to be its canon appearance in The Last Bastion short.
• Expository Pronoun: For the span of the initial Overwatch, Bastion was officially referred to as "it", highlighting the greatly manufactured nature of its origins, seen as less of a "person" and more of a walking weapon. By the time of Overwatch 2, with Torbjörn realizing that Bastion is unusually sapient and self-aware, he shifts to referring to Bastion with "he/him" pronouns, treating him as a person in his own right.
• Eyes Do Not Belong There: Bastion has four optics in both of its shoulder guards, giving a total of nine "eyes". When in Sentry Mode, the shoulder guards open up for the optics, explaining how Bastion can see after tucking away its head.
• Friend to All Living Things: Intensely curious about the world and wants to live unharmed and without harming others. In the short, it's shown that birds and butterflies flock to it when it's standing still.
• Gatling Good: In its assault mode, it transforms into a tank with a Gatling gun with some of the highest potential DPS in the entire game.
• Gentle Giant: Towers over most of the characters in "Recon" mode (except Reinhardt), and is really gentle towards all living creatures (except maybe humans).
• Glowing Mechanical Eyes: The single eye has a faint glow to it.
• Grew Beyond Their Programming: Was originally designed for peacekeeping purposes, but eventually turned against its creators during the Omnic Crisis. Upon its awakening from a long period of inactivity, it displays an inquisitive and almost innocent nature (though its original combat capabilities still resurface when it feels threatened).
• Heal Thyself: Bastion's now-removed Self-Repair ability can heal it over time while in Recon or Sentry mode, though it's restricted by a resource meter that recharges over time; self-healing must be manually turned on or off, and Bastion cannot fire its weapons while healing itself. From the first beta up until February 2017, it didn't have a resource meter, but it wasn't able to move while healing (even in Recon mode) in addition to being unable to fire, and taking any damage immediately stopped it.
• Heel–Face Turn: Having fought for the omnics during the Omnic Crisis, it wakes up with no memory, and once Bastion regains it, the omnic chooses to live in isolation with its bird friend rather than return to its original purpose of killing humans.
• I Am Not a Gun: Bastion is a combat unit with little to no interest in combat, and would rather coexist peacefully among nature. The moments in canon where it does slip are depicted as trigger-induced freak-outs rather than anything born out of conscious hostility.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Other Omnics like Orisa and Zenyatta seem to understand Bastion's robotic beeps in their team-up quotes. And in OW2, the whole Overwatch team seems to be able to understand its beeps just fine, conversing with it regularly. The one exception seems to be Sojourn who can only respond to it in awkward agreement.
  Bastion: *questioning beeps*
  Torbjörn: It's like I told you! Humans start out small, but they get big quick!
  Bastion: *more questioning beeps*
  Torbjörn: No, no. I'm much bigger than I used to be.
  Reinhardt: Especially around the midriff! Hahahaha!
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Downplayed. Most omnics have gendered pronouns to indicate their human-level status as citizens (albeit mostly marginalized ones), whereas Bastion spent the first several years in Overwatch being officially referred to as an "it" by other characters and most developers. However, this wasn't treated as necessarily demeaning or oppressive, as Bastion was quite literally made as one of many identical weapons of war without a gendered physical appearance or personality in mind, and even though it's since developed its own distinct level of sapience, it's still effectively either gender-neutral or genderless. By the time of Overwatch 2, more characters and official Blizzard descriptions have moved past this and instead describe the increasingly sociable Bastion with "he/him" pronouns.
• Killer Robot: Was one during the Omnic Crisis, but nowadays since gaining self-awareness, it only fights when provoked and only wants to live alone in peace.
• Last of Its Kind: Of the "Bastion" unit series after most of them were destroyed or disassembled.
• Living Toys: Its "Brick" skin changes it to look like a colorful LEGO set, complete with flame pieces appearing when firing and falling apart with the clatter of plastic as opposed to metal.
• Loyal Animal Companion: Bastion is almost always accompanied by a small bird named "Ganymede" when not in combat.
• Meaningful Name: A "Bastion" is a part of a fortification that is built at an angle, allowing defensive fire. It's also a Punny Name given the common phrase "last bastion", which is exploited as the name of his video short.
• Mecha-Mooks: Originally, it was just another one of the "Bastion" model production omnics that made up some of the most effective killers during the Omnic Crisis. It somehow became something more during the years since the war's end.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: Bastion recieved a significant refurbishing between Overwatch 1 and 2, as represented by his new, sleeker, appearance as well as his updated abilities and weapons. He also got a hat.
• Mighty Glacier: Bastion has the highest health total of any non-tank hero, with a full third of it being armor to compensate for his large hitbox and limited mobility, but he really exemplifies this trope when he transforms into his Assault form, gaining a further boost to damage reduction and access to the devastating firepower of his minigun, as well as a more compact hitbox that hides his head from enemies in front. However, it also doubles down on his lack of mobility by reducing his movement speed significantly.
• Morality Chain: Bastion's bird companion, Ganymede, doubles as this. In the short, they're the one who snaps Bastion out of its combat programming and convinces Bastion to return to the forest rather than follow its objective into the nearby city. Torbjörn later adopts Bastion in "Binary", and has no intention of letting it out of his sight, and every intention of scrapping it at the first sign of it reverting to its combat programming.
• More Dakka: Switching to assault mode enables Bastion to mow down the enemy team with heavy, continuous fire. If not dealt with properly, it can kill anyone in a matter of seconds. Only a few characters can counter Bastion's high damage output without resorting to their ultimates.
• Nature-Loving Robot: Spent years offline in a forest. One bird in particular built its nest on it, and acts as Bastion's Morality Pet. Bastion itself shows a fascination with wild animals and nature — its own short ending with it deciding to return to the forest.
• The Only One: The implications of the comic "Binary" is that Bastion is a key figure in the second Omnic Crisis due to its child-like sentience and for going against its central programming. The usually xenophobic Torbjörn actually saves it from a town that is hunting it out of hate and fear. Bastion wasn't saved by an act of kindness, however; it was saved by an act of curiosity and for Torbjörn's need for redemption.
• Ontological Mystery: In The Last Bastion, it simply activates, whole, if weathered and covered in earth and plant growth, in the middle of a forest, unaware of what it is or where it came from. The short concludes with several more mysteries, such as why the robot is more self-aware than its brethren or what led it to shut-down, fully-functional, in the middle of the woods.
• Parts Unknown: Where this particular Bastion was built isn't known. For what it's worth, the writing on its body uses the Latin alphabet, its HUD is in omnicode, there are Arabic numerals incorporated into both (the kind used by most Western countries), and the woods it wakes up in are near Eichenwalde, Germany.
• Pinball Projectile: Its grenade can bounce off surfaces to surprise enemies from different angles.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: The assault form's Gatling gun has the highest damage rate for a non-ultimate weapon by a wide margin, but the spread is quite wide, even for the very first shot, and gets wider over time as the weapon is continuously fired.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: One of its skins, appropriately titled "Omnic Crisis", has its vertical-slitted eye colored a dark red-violet. This also happens in its short whenever its combat programming begins to take over. There's an emote where the same thing happens.
• Rocket Jump: Before the ability was removed, projectiles fired during Configuration: Tank could propel Bastion up a decent height if fired at the ground below, allowing you to be more unpredictable while using your ultimate.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: A robotic version. Any sound or visual cue that makes Bastion remember the Omnic Crisis causes it to revert to its original programming against its will. Mistaking the sound of a woodpecker in the forest for machine-gun fire causes it to revert to sentry mode not long after it wakes up in The Last Bastion, and Bastion reverts to its original programming when it later downloads the memories of the Omnic Crisis from a fallen Bastion unit. It's only Ganymede's innocent intervention that snaps them out of it.
• Skill Gate Characters: Far and away the biggest headache for inexperienced players, who are unfamiliar with its counters and possible flank routes through the map. Once players figure out how to counter it, Bastion very quickly becomes one of the weaker characters, though some more clever Bastion players can rely on shifting their position often to ambush opponents and make it useful at higher skill levels. A Bastion player who masters the positioning, when to use the tank form and when not to, as well as having a good communication with your teammates, however, is an absolute beast to be reckoned with.
• Split Personality: "The Last Bastion'' short makes its combat programming act like one. In its "blue-eyed" personality, the robot seems inquisitive, innocent, and gentle, with smooth, careful movements. Its "red-eyed" combat-oriented personality, by contrast, moves in a clipped, efficient fashion and attempts to achieve its long-since-pointless "objective" by attacking a nearby city. The two seemingly struggle for control when Ganymede perches on it, with the blue-eyed personality emerging as dominant.
• Steampunk: Its "Steambot" and "Gearbot" skins change them designs based on this style.
• Spent Shells Shower: The "Bullet Rain" intro showers the camera in spent shells before zooming out to show its minigun firing away.
• Super Mode: Changing into its Tank/Gatling form grants the highest damaging weapon in the game for a few seconds, allowing him to mow down almost every other hero. It only lasts for a few seconds though, so make it count.
• Super-Toughness: Bastion became very durable following its Season 4 rework as a consequence of both its tweaked Self-Repair and new Ironclad passive. The passive initially reduced 35% of all incoming damage, but it was considered way too much, as Bastion was able to shrug off an immense amount of damage with little effort, even focused-fire to its weak point and multiple enemy ultimates, something even Tank heroes could only dream of. Naturally, 3 days after its introduction, it was nerfed to 20%. It's still strong enough to survive a charge from Reinhardt, but only just.
• Tank Goodness: One of its abilities transforms it into a tank.
• Transforming Mecha: It can switch between its Recon and Assauly configurations, and has an Ultimate that has it transform into an Artillery weapon.
• Trauma Button: Things that remind it of the Omnic Crisis can cause it to revert back into its combat programming, much like a PTSD trigger.
• The Unintelligible: Doesn't have a distinguishable voice of any sort, just beeping chirps, similar to the tweets of its bird friend. It should be noted, that they came from an actual voice actor who was asked to make sounds representing emotions, whatever exactly that entails, before being processed into their final form (it's most evident during Bastion's "screaming" while falling off the map, where you can vaguely make out Chris Metzen's voice beneath Bastion's whistling tone).
• Walk, Don't Swim: It's implied that Bastion walked along the ocean floor in "Binary" to reach its destination, as it's seen with starfish and an octopus clinging to it.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Despite omnic rights coming into prominence, there wasn't much grief spent on either side over the mass dismantling of whatever Bastion units remained. Several characters in-game treat the last of them with a measure of dignity, though.
• You Are Number 6: Most of the time it's just identified as "Bastion", but one of Orisa's lines has her refer to it specifically as "E54".

Cassidy - United States

Cole Cassidy / "Jesse McCree"

"Someone needs to fill this saddle."

Species: Human
Age: 37 (1), 39 (2)
Birthday: July 31st
Occupation: Bounty Hunter
Base of Operations: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
Affiliation: Deadlock Gang (formerly), Overwatch
Appearances (shorts): Cinematic Trailer (cameo), Recall (cameo), Ana Origin Story (cameo), Moira Origin Story (cameo), Reunion (focus), Ashe Origin Story (cameo), Roadtrip (cameo)
Appearances (comics): "Train Hopper" (focus), "Reflections" (cameo), "Uprising", "Retribution", "New Blood"
Appearances (Archives events): Retribution

"Justice ain't gonna dispense itself."

Voiced by: Matthew Mercer (English)^note Other Languages:Jose Arenas (Latin American Spanish), Gabriel Jiménez (European Spanish), Jurota Kosugi (Japanese), Boris Rehlinger (French), Guilherme Lopes (Brazilian Portuguese), Alessandro D'Errico (Italian), Torben Liebrecht (German), Yun-sang Kwak (Korean), Hsia Chih Shih (Taiwanese Chinese), Li Jin (Mandarin Chinese), Kamil Pruban (Polish), Alexey Myasnikov (Russian)

Armed with his Peacekeeper revolver, the outlaw known as Cole Cassidy, once known as Jesse McCree, doles out justice on his own terms.

Cassidy had already made a name for himself as a member of the notorious Deadlock Gang, which trafficked in illicit weapons and military hardware throughout the American Southwest, when he and his associates were busted in an Overwatch sting operation. With his expert marksmanship and resourcefulness, he was given the choice between rotting in a maximum-security lockup, or joining Blackwatch, Overwatch's covert ops division. He chose the latter.

Although he was initially cynical, he came to believe that he could make amends for his past sins by righting the injustices of the world. Cassidy appreciated the flexibility afforded to the clandestine Blackwatch, unhindered by bureaucracy and red tape. But as Overwatch's influence waned, rogue elements within Blackwatch sought to bring down the organization and turn it to their own ends. Wanting no part of the infighting, Cassidy set off alone and went underground.

He resurfaced several years later as a gunslinger for hire. But while Cassidy talents are sought after by parties great and small, he fights only for causes he believes are just.

After Tracer, Mei, and Reinhardt respectively, Cassidy is the fourth agent to respond to Winston's recall for the reinstatement of Overwatch. At the time, he was near Indiana or Kentucky in the United States.

The first thing a renegade loses is their name, and this one gave up his long ago. Running from his past meant running from himself, and each passing year only widened the divide between who he had been and what he had become. But in every cowboy's life, there comes a time when he has to stop and make a stand. To make this new Overwatch better — to make things right — he had to be honest with his team and himself. The cowboy he was rode into the sunset, and Cole Cassidy faced the world at dawn.

Cassidy is a sharpshooter who can both apply pressure from afar and burst down squishy enemies at close quarters.

• His main weapon is the Peacemaker, a trusty, highly accurate six-shooter ideal for close to mid-range firing.
• His secondary fire, Fan the Hammer, has him quickly unloading all of his remaining ammo, dealing extremely high damage when used at close range.
• Combat Roll lets him evade danger while simultaneously reloading his revolver.
• Magnetic Grenade is a bomb that can be tossed out to home in on the closest nearby enemy, sticking onto them and hindering their mobility before exploding.
• Deadeye During his ultimate, Cassidy slowly takes aim at all enemies in his vision range, instantly killing them with a single shot once he has focused enough on them. The lower their health is, the faster he'll line up a killshot.

Previous Abilities

• Flashbang was a blinding grenade that briefly stunned nearby enemies upon exploding.

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• Achilles' Heel: Barriers like Reinhard's and Orisa's shields can stop Cassidy in his tracks. His revolver's slow fire rate prevents him from just knocking them down in a hurry and he lacks the mobility of other Offense heroes like Tracer and Genji, meaning that it's difficult for him to simply walk around it without putting himself in a precarious situation.
• The Alcoholic: Cassidy has had several moments which paint him as loving the bottle. In Junkenstein's Revenge, he has a chance to ask Hanzo to pass his flask around for a drink. In the tavern of Eichenwalde, he'll wonder if the taps still work and complain about a powerful thirst. In the "Reflections" webcomic, he's shown passed out in a bar. He also says that Hanzo's sake isn't bad, but he prefers a little "bite" to his liquor.
• Alliterative Name: His real name, Cole Cassidy.
• Ambiguously Brown: His actual ethnicity has not (yet) been discussed by developers. He's tan-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed as well as speaks Spanish in his comic and comes from an area with a large Latino population, so some fans have speculated that he's at least part Latino. He's also been theorized to have Native American heritage due to his facial features. Some speculate that he's simply Caucasian with a tan. This seems downplayed by Overwatch 2, however, as his newer model has a noticeably lighter complexion, seemingly implying that Cassidy is white.
• Anti-Hero: A former outlaw, and now fights the good fight.
  • Further elaborated upon in the Reunion animation: Sure, he's left his life of crime behind him, but his old friends haven't, and he implies that he's the one who sent them the hot tip about the train they could heist, and states outright that as long as they give him the crate the train was transporting, the Deadlock Gang are free to claim the rest. Ergo, he not only didn't have anything against setting up a criminal heist in order to get what he wanted, as long as he wasn't the one carrying out the heist itself, but he was also perfectly content with letting a gang of outlaws get away with their heist.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • Like Symmetra, the design of Cassidy's left arm seems to suggest that it's a cybernetic replacement. Confirmed by this cosplay reference guide. His Blackwatch skin shows that it's relatively recent and couldn't have had it more than at most seven years, as he still had his original arm during his Blackwatch days and the London Uprising.
    Torbjörn: McCree, what happened to your arm?
    Cassidy: Always admired yours. Figured I'd get one of my own.
  • One of the threats Ashe shouts at Cassidy near the end of the Reunion cinematic implies that it was her robot butler, B.O.B., who removed his original arm. Deconfirmed by Word of God; Michael Chu stating that "McCree and B.O.B. get along just fine."
• Awesome Anachronistic Apparel:
  • His outfit fits in better in the Old West, and is without a doubt awesome.
  • His Mystery Man skin updates him slightly... To a 1930s Pulp Magazine hero. Still anachronistic, still awesome.
• Awesome, but Impractical: His ult, “Deadeye” can wipe out an entire enemy team at once. This comes at the cost of a group needing to be close enough to be in sight and unobstructed by cover, not notice you use a very brightly advertised ult that takes several seconds to charge and leaves you completely defenseless, and not forcing out your Ult (completely forfeiting it) with a character with a stun ability).
• The Atoner: Seeks to make up for his past crimes as a weapons trafficker by becoming a hero and righting all the injustices he's able to.
• Badass Bandolier: Wears a bandolier of bullets on his belt.
• Badass Boast: When on fire:
  "(chuckles) You best head for the hills, I'm on fire!"
• Badass Cape: A variation; he wears a red serape, just like The Man with No Name. He's also a Badass Normal.
• Badass Long Coat: When equipped with the "Gambler" and "Riverboat" skins.
• Badass Normal: Far more than anyone else. While other Badass Normals use advanced technology to keep up with everyone else, his flashbang and revolver seem rather mundane, even by today's standards, with the only sign of advanced technology perhaps being his left arm, which he only uses to reload, fan-fire, and melee anyway. Other than that, he's just a guy with a gun and really good aim. Even his ultimate doesn't involve any gadget and is just him focusing on his next shots.
• Baritone of Strength: Speaks with a smooth, deep voice, and is one of the most capable combatants in the setting.
• Becoming the Costume:
  • His "Gambler" and "Riverboat" skins give him a few gambling references, such as "Not time to fold'em yet" while respawning, and "Jackpot!" after a multikill.
  • His "Vigilante" and "Mystery Man" skins give him a few shout-outs to famous Pulp hero The Shadow, including "I know the evil that lurks in the hearts of men."
  • His "Blackwatch" skin simply replaces his "switching heroes" line from "The name's Cassidy!" to "Cassidy reportin'."
  • Subverted with his "Van Helsing" skin. The line "It's high moon..." was added to the game's files in the same patch as the skin, but there doesn't seem to be any way to trigger it.
  • His "Lifeguard" skin also gives him a few additional lines, including saying "No running!" when using a Flashbang or Magnetic Grenade, and changing his ultimate callout to "It's high tide..."
  • His "Sherlock" skin gives him a few Shout-Outs to... well, Sherlock Holmes, quoting "The game's afoot!", "I wear the damn hat!", and even an elaborate claim that he's heading to 221B Baker Street, hoping that Mrs. Hudson is keeping things in order.
• Bilingual Bonus: His "Magistrate" skin features a belt buckle that reads "갓크리", which when transliterated from Korean, reads as "God-Cree".
• Blinded by the Light: His Flashbang ability momentarily stuns its target with... well, a flash and a bang.
• Book Dumb: Gets accused of being uncultured by Moira in Retribution, and he answered that he's been to the Cave of Mystery ^note attackers' second spawn point on Route 66, which seems to be a local attraction of sorts, the French version has him answer that he somtimes reads books without pictures, but he might just be trolling her.
• Born in the Wrong Century: While he's still a formidable gunslinger, his cowboy archetype seems rather perplexing in 2076. It's unclear as to exactly how out-of-place it is in-universe (cowboys do still exist in the Southern U.S., and it's not impossible that he's descended from genuine vaqueros), but this exchange seems to imply it's at least a little odd:
  Cassidy: I bet you're a big fan of those old-fashioned cowboy movies, aren't you?
  Soldier: 76: I thought I was... until I met you.
• Bottomless Magazines: Zig-zagged. While Deadeye still costs ammo to use, it lets Cassidy shoot at however many targets he has acquired in his field of view. If there are more than 6 painted targets, or just more enemies than he has ammo for in his Peacekeeper, Cassidy would keep shooting even if his cylinder is empty.
• Bounty Hunter: This is what he ends up becoming after Overwatch's collapse. Also counts as Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, as he's never seen capturing anyone in media released thus far.
• Boxed Crook: When he was busted by Overwatch, he was given the choice to go to prison, or work for them. Naturally, he took the latter. Since he was able to resign later, he probably kept working with Overwatch even after earning his freedom.
• The Cameo: He makes an appearance in the "A Moment In Crime Special Report" trailer, where he can be seen looking at Junkrat and Roadhog's wanted posters.
• Camera Abuse: One of his highlight intros involves firing at the camera and leaving bullet holes.
• The Charmer: Cassidy tends to be very gentlemanly and flirtatious towards women. Ana even calls him a charmer in in-game dialogue.
• Cigar Chomper: He's always seen carrying a lit cigar in his mouth, another reference to Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name.
• Clint Squint: His default expression. It rarely changes into anything else.
• Coat, Hat, Mask: His "Mystery Man" gives him a mask, a hat different from his usual cowboy one and a Badass Cape instead of a Badass Long Coat.
• Coup de Grâce: His Flashbang stuns the enemy for approximately 0.7 seconds, which downplays the trope as it's such a short duration. But that duration is enough to get a headshot (which, considering his Peacekeeper's high base damage, is utterly massive) or unload his entire cylinder using Fan the Hammer.
• Covert Group: Was a former member of Blackwatch, a clandestine offshoot of Overwatch.
• Deadpan Snarker: To fit his Spaghetti Western motif, he's by far the snarkiest of all the playable characters and doesn't seem to take any of his foes all that seriously.
• Defector from Decadence: When Overwatch fell to internal corruption and Blackwatch sought to control the organization for its own ends, Cassidy promptly resigned in disgust. He still carries the symbol of his old organization on his hat.
• Difficult, but Awesome:
  • Cassidy is perhaps more reliant on good aim than any other damage-based hero short of Widowmaker and Hanzo. Due to his weapon's slow fire rate and pinpoint accuracy, he cannot simply spray at his target's general vicinity to hit them, unlike fellow Offense heroes Tracer and Soldier: 76. Thus, he has to aim his shots carefully to get any value out of his incredible damage output outside of the occasional Flashbang + Fan the Hammer combo.
  • Deadeye requires one to be a master of timing and practicing good judgement. When activated, it makes him move extremely slowly and prevents him from firing until he cancels or unleashes it, which essentially turns him into an easy target if used at the wrong time or if a lucky enemy gets the drop on him. This is not helped by the fact that he has to maintain a direct line of sight to his enemies after making his presence known by calling "IT'S HIGH NOON!" (which means they can find him just by looking in his general direction), and he glows during the process to make finding him substantially easier than usual. Finally, the bullets can still be blocked by shields and cover, or worse, deflected back at him by Genji. But, when used at just the proper moment, a perfectly timed Deadeye can turn the tide of a fight. When fully charged, it has the capability to take out large groups of enemies at once and even win games all by itself.
• Domino Mask: Part of his "Mystery Man" skin, giving him the look of an old-time robber.
• Dramatic Wind: If there is enough room for it to spawn, a tumbleweed appears when using his Ultimate.
  Echo: (watching Cassidy get a kill with Deadeye) Where did that tumbleweed come from?
• Everyone Has Standards: This is a man who was a former arms dealer in a futuristic gang, and whatever Blackwatch got up to apparently sickened even him. Given that Blackwatch was led by the man that would become Reaper, this has... implications.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: Normally it doesn't affect gameplay, but it does dip into the top of his vision during his ultimate.
• Farm Boy: It's implied in one dialogue with Ashe that he spent at least a part of his youth on a farm of some kind, and seems to look at that time with a degree of fondness.
• Flare Gun: His Lifeguard skin replaces his revolver with a "Desert Seagull" flare gun, although for gameplay purposes, it functions identically to his normal revolver.
• Firing One-Handed: Normally does this, though he will use the other to fan the revolver.
• Fun with Acronyms: His belt buckle has the word "BAMF" (AKA, "Badass Motherfucker") on it. In his Scrooge skin, it instead reads GAMF (presumably "Greedy/Grumpy Ass Motherfucker"). As for his Lifeguard skin, it's SAMF. Word is still out on what precisely it could mean: Sexy, Salty, Safe, Swimming, or any other S word associated with a Walking Shirtless Scene who saves people's lives in the water. His Undead skin changes to "DAMF" ("Dead-Ass Motherfucker").
• Fur Against Fang: Van Helsing has always been seen as the Arch-Enemy to Dracula, but Cassidy's "Van Helsing" skin also gains hints of lycanthropy (namely a glowing arm which supposedly resulted from a werewolf biting "The Gunslinger") to evoke this trope on top of it.
• The Gambler: Cassidy has an unlockable skin called Gambler that gives him a 19th century-style suit, a neatly-groomed mustache, an Ace up his sleeve, and a revolver adorned with playing card suites. He also has a belt buckle that says "Hold 'Em" (a reference to the Kenny Rogers song "The Gambler").
• Glass Cannon: His shots, Flashbang ability, and Deadeye (especially) can deal huge amounts of damage to his enemies in a very short time if accurate. However, other than Combat Roll and the short stun effect of his Flashbang, he has no tools to defend his mere 200 Health pool. This was rectified slighty with his Overwatch 2 Combat Roll upgrade that reduces incoming damage during the animation.
• Good Feels Good: This seems to have been a factor in his reform, in that he enjoyed helping people while a Boxed Crook far more than he ever enjoyed being a villain. It may have also been a factor in his eventual departure from Blackwatch, as they went in the other direction.
• Gun Accessories: He has a laser sight on his revolver in his Blackwatch outfit.
• Gun Twirling: Does this in his idle animation, when reloading, and in at least two of his taunts.
• The Gunslinger: This guy's got a six-shooter, and he knows how to use it.
• Hand Cannon: His revolver is pretty damn huge, and 2 or 3 well-aimed shots can kill any non-tank hero.
• Hats Off to the Dead: He does this as a victory pose.
• Herald: After getting wind of Winston's recall message, he's spent quite a while traveling the world, getting in contact with former associates and amassing new blood to join the newly-resurgent Overwatch. Reunion sees him locating and reactivating Echo to join up immediately, and "New Blood" sees him traveling further to meet up with Pharah, Baptiste, Zarya, and D.Va, convincing them to join up for the cause.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: "Train Hopper" shows that "McCree" was not liked by the law following Overwatch's disbandment. His mere presence on a train leads authorities to assume that he's hijacked it — even when the truth of the matter is that he took down a squad of mercenaries (implied to be Blackwatch or Talon) who would have killed everyone on the train if not for his interference.
• Hitman with a Heart: Although his services are greatly sought after by all sides, he refuses to fight for causes he does not think are just.
• Homage: Being a gunslinger with a stubbly face, perpetual Clint Squint, and a poncho, he's an obvious homage to Clint Eastwood's "Man With No Name" persona.
• Hunk: Ruggedly handsome, and his Lifeguard skin shows him to be pretty cut as well.
• Hypocritical Humor: Despite initially wanting to kill Antonio in the Retribution comic, almost all his dialogue with Reyes in the event proper is anger at his commander killing Antonio instead of capturing him. Although further dialogues make it clear that he's not angry at Reyes for killing him as much as doing so loudly, going against the plan, and putting all of them in danger.
• Improbable Age: Given that this picture was taken◊ 20 years before the game, Cassidy was 17 at most when he was recruited into Blackwatch and even younger when he founded the Deadlocks and became a notorious criminal.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: His Deadeye ability shows how good he is at aiming. He can make fatal headshots with deadly precision, but without any sort of assistance whatsoever. While Soldier: 76 has his Tactical Visor assisting him, and Widowmaker had her heart rate slowed down to make precision shots, Cassidy has just his natural skill and talent.
• "Instant Death" Radius: The typical and often most reliable way for Cassidy to kill someone is a Flashbang to the face followed by him fanning the hammer point-blank into them (or a couple shots to the head). After which he'll be walking on his way while the victim is waiting in spawn.
• Jump Physics: As of the January 2022 patch, Cassidy can use his Combat Roll mid-air rather than simply on the ground, making it easier for him to get out of sticky situations (such as getting knocked over a bottomless pit) or get a very strange mid-air drop on the enemy.
• Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: In a universe with abundant energy weapons, his revolver stands out for sheer damage potential. This even works into his ultimate. "Deadeye" was reworked in 2017 so that the longer he keeps his draw on a target, the more damage it'll do when he fires. Given enough time and maybe the help of a nanoboost, he can one-shot every character in the game.^note It used to take 0.8 seconds to lock on to your targets, and then did a set amount of damage, enough to kill all but full-health Tank classes. Now it takes 0.2 seconds to lock on and does more damage the longer you wait, with an indicator of when it's a kill.
• Knight Errant: The wandering gunslinger variant.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He has a taciturn demeanor and is always frowning. But the lore indicates he'd always do the right thing.
• Last-Name Basis: He goes solely by his surname. He and Ashe are the only characters billed by surname.
• Lead the Target: A very slight, solely cosmetic example; most heroes' weapons slightly drag behind, overshoot, or wobble with the camera as it turns around, but Cassidy is skilled-enough of a gunslinger that he leads his turns with his revolver, making him able to aim where he wants to shoot before he himself has finished turning to it.
• More Dakka: Unusually for a videogame revolver (the move is more often seen in movies), he's capable of this by fanning the hammer of his revolver. You can also follow up with a Combat Roll to instantly reload and unleash another barrage.
• Mr. Fanservice: If he wasn't considered good-looking already, his Lifeguard skin shows off his physique.
• Mundane Utility: Some very skilled Cassidy players will go into Deadeye and exit immediately just for a quick refill of their gun in the midst of a fight.
• Necessary Drawback: Fanning the hammer may allow Cassidy to quickly dump the rest of his revolver's cylinder into a target in front of him, but it has multiple drawbacks. First, accuracy goes right out the window compared to firing the revolver normally. Next, each shot fired by fanning the hammer does less damage than a shot fired normally ^note 45 damage for fanned vs 70 damage for normal. Finally, shots fired by fanning the hammer do not benefit from a headshot bonus.
• Noodle Incident:
  • There was one thing that Reyes did during his time with Blackwatch that disgusted Cassidy, though we don't know what it is yet.
  • We don't know how he lost his left arm. He still has his original arm in the Uprising comic, which takes place seven years prior to the events of the game.
• Notice This: When an enemy Cassidy performs Deadeye, he will give off an orange glow to make him more noticeable. This is not a bad thing, as a Cassidy who's less visible and thus gives virtually no chance for counterplay would be very frustrating.
• Offhand Backhand: A variation in the "Reunion" animated short: he blasts a Deadlock sniper lining up a shot on him without looking while taking cover behind a boulder.
• Ornamental Weapon: His Van Helsing costume has a crossbow slung on his back, but he doesn't use it.
• One-Hit Kill: His Deadeye ultimate will instantly kill enemies that it fully charges on. The catch is that targets with higher HP take longer to charge upon ^note it charges at a rate of 200HP per second; Roadhog at full health, for example, would take 3 whole seconds to lock onto, but once the red skull icon appears, hitting left click gives the target an express ticket back to spawn.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Played for Laughs in Retribution; Cassidy had previously spent a few days in Venice undercover as a waiter, attempting to speak with the appropriate accent instead of his Southern drawl. It's about as convincing as Brad Pitt's Italian accent in Inglourious Basterds.
  Cassidy: I watched a bunch of old Spaghetti Westerns, I thought it was pretty good! "Bonah serah, sinyora. Can I-ah get’chu-ah somethin' to drink?"
  Moira: Please, never do that again.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: His "Van Helsing" skin gives him a glowing left arm. Per his scary story at the Halloween party in the Junkenstein comic, a werewolf bit him right before he could kill it with a silver bullet.
• Outlaw: He was one of the founders of the notorious Deadlock Gang, but is trying to redeem himself nowadays despite his reputation.
• Perpetual Frowner: Is always seen with a permanent frown, a Clint Squint, and a smoking cigar in his mouth, like any gunslinging hero. He does smile in his "Hat Tip" and "Joker" emotes.
• Personal Horror: Cassidy didn't intend to use his "Jesse McCree" alias for as long as he did — it was originally just a name he planned to use while joining a gang of bank robbers, but as the venture snowballed out of control, the new identity effectively took over his life and followed him even after he personally reformed. During "New Blood", Ana directly hints that Cassidy is ashamed of the name as it's a mark of his troubled past of jumping from one desperate situation to another. His decision to return to his given name coincided with his appointment as the herald of the new Overwatch, a new chance to escape his past and be reborn as a bona fide hero.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When he uses his ultimate.
  "It's high noon..."
• Pretty Boy: If this picture◊ is accurate, he was one when he was younger. Now he's just ruggedly handsome.
• Punny Name: A threefold one with his real name, Cole Cassidy. His first name, Cole, is synergistic with that of his established rival Ashe ("coal" & "ash"), and his initials are "CC", which is an abbreviation for "crowd control", something that he's become quite infamous for with his Flashbang. Finally, his last name, Cassidy, is evocative of real-life outlaw and gang leader "Butch Cassidy"...which was a pseudonym for Robert LeRoy Parker, akin to how "Jesse McCree" was a pseudonym for Cole.
• Quick Draw: Played with. His Deadeye ability allows him to One-Hit Kill targets instantly and quickly... if their health is low enough. If the targets' health is full, it may take a while to load up your shots, allowing the enemy players to wipe you out before you can attack.
• Recruiting the Criminal: When Overwatch arrested him, they offered him a chance to join their ranks, or rot in prison. He chose the former, and he turned out to be a hero.
• Red Is Heroic: He wears a red Badass Serape. He's also a reformed criminal who doubles as a Hitman with a Heart.
• Reformed Criminal: Was once a Deadlock member responsible for illegal weapon trafficking until he was busted by Overwatch. Nowadays, he's a gun-slinging vigilante who fights for justice.
• Refusal of the Call: He got Winston's recall message, but he's occupied with other unspecified business and doesn't show up to Overwatch's reunion in Zero Hour. He does, however, get Echo back online to take his place.
• Revolvers Are Just Better: His main weapon is a revolver, and he's one of the hardest-hitting gun heroes sans Reaper.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Uses one to cover his face when equipped with the "Mystery Man" skin. Doesn't hinder his asskicking any one bit.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Cassidy bailed on Overwatch when he realized that Blackwatch was conspiring against Overwatch. This was likely a long time coming, as his doubts about Blackwatch likely started forming the moment Gabriel murdered the Talon agent Antonio in cold blood during the events of Retribution.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: His "Gambler" skin makes him better groomed and immaculately dressed, complete with a Badass Long Coat.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: In the comic short "Train Hopper", he shoots down several Talon soldiers inside a train after they take the passengers hostage, with absolutely no civilian casualties.
• Showdown at High Noon:
  • Referenced by his ultimate, Deadeye, with him even saying "It's high noon..." when activating it. He also sometimes references this before the battle starts, saying "Well, it's high noon somewhere in the world..."
  • Played gleefully straight in Reunion, standing off against Ashe and her Deadlock Gang, building up the tension as they take aim, then once the clock hits noon, hell breaks loose.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Cassidy combat style involves just shooting things, and occasionally flashbanging and then shooting things. However, these two abilities — with his high damage and ability to interrupt a character at almost any time — make him one of the most dangerous and effective characters in the game.
• Small Steps Hero: In Issue #1 of the webcomic, Cassidy kicks a valuable MacGuffin off the train he's on. While this ensures that the mercenaries who attacked the train will take it for themselves, it also means the civilians on the train are out of harm's way.
• Smoking Is Cool: Always shown with a cigar in his mouth.
• Sniper Pistol: The Peacekeeper is perfectly accurate except when using Fan the Hammer. To compensate, its damage decreases rather quickly past medium range. Its long-range damage was briefly buffed, but was rolled back because it rendered certain other heroes useless or redundant.
• Southern Gentleman: A former outlaw from New Mexico, Cassidy is generally laidback, very respectful towards women and is just as gentlemanly with Echo.
• Spaghetti Western: His look owes a lot to it. His ultimate references it even more. As long as it's activated, a sepia filter is applied and a faint gust of wind appears, along with the occasional tumbleweed.
• Spiteful Spit: His "Spit" emote has him do this to the side, though rather nastily, he still does this with the Mystery Man and Vigilante skins in spite of wearing a huge, lower-face-covering scarf. At least the animators made sure to remove the spit particle, but still, ew.
• Status Infliction Attack: The Flashbang stuns targets and deals a small amount of damage at the same time.
• Sticky Bomb: The Magnetic Grenade is a projectile that replaced Cassidy's Flashbang for Overwatch 2. While acting like a similar short-range explosive, rather than stunning enemies in place, it homes in on nearby enemies and sticks to them before detonating for damage, as well as hindering their speed and movement abilities.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Sombra (whose hobby is digging up hidden dirt and things people have tried to hide) smugly asks if Jesse McCree is his real name, he answers that he doesn't know what she's heard, but his name's not Joel. While "McCree" was eventually ousted as being a pseudonym, it turns out his real name was Cole Cassidy — what "Joel" likely refers to was a different possible pseudonym "Joel Morricone", who once published an article of his endeavors in a suspiciously overly-flattering light.
• Tattooed Crook: His original left arm had a Deadlock gang tattoo on it, as can be seen in his Blackwatch skin.
• The Team Normal: In Retribution, he's on the same team with a Super-Soldier with wraith powers, a Cyber Ninja who can use spirit dragons, and a Mad Scientist with all sorts of genetic enhancements. Meanwhile, he's just a guy with a six-shooter and very good aim.
• Token Good Teammate: Among those on the Retribution mission, Cassidy was the only one to show concern and outrage over Reyes murdering Antonio in cold blood, while Genji showed no concern and Moira outright said Reyes had nothing to apologize for.
• Took a Level in Idealism: He used to be a criminal and quite a cynic, but became an idealistic hero during his time in Blackwatch. In contrast, the opposite happened to Soldier: 76, a Wide-Eyed Idealist who Took a Level in Cynic.
• Troll: As his Deadpan Snarker tendencies suggest, he's not above taking the piss out of someone, even as naive and oblivious as Sigma, who he convinces has literally time traveled.
  Sigma: An American cowhand! Has this dimension shifted timescales?
  Cassidy: That's right, big-man! It's the 1880s all over again.
  Sigma: Remarkable! How far away are we from Bonn? I'd like to meet Heinrich Hertz.
• Tuckerization: Was named after a real-life former employee of Blizzard. However, after his namesake was fired from Blizzard in 2021 for being complicit in sexual harassment in the company, the character was renamed. In universe, Cole Cassidy is his real name that he abandoned after becoming an outlaw, with "Jesse McCree" being an alias he used from his criminal career onward.
• Unflinching Walk: A Play Of The Game highlight has Cassidy throw his lit cigar at a stockpile of Chinese New Year explosives. A second later, the explosion goes off, and cue slow-motion walk by Cassidy. Amusingly, this also works with the Lifeguard skin too, despite his cigar being replaced with a lollipop stick.
• Unorthodox Reload: Not quite the oddest in the game, but the way he reloads his Peacemaker is very efficient. Spinning it on his finger, he lets gravity empty out the spent shell casing, jams in a speedloader to replace the bullets in one go, then with a twist of his wrist kicks the chamber back into place, getting it ready to fire again within 1.5 seconds.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: In his Lifeguard skin. No one is complaining.
• "Wanted!" Poster: His "Wanted" spray, which depicts the price on his head being $60,000,000. He has another with the picture being an empty spot, allowing the player to put it over anything.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: His "American" skin not only replaces his serape with the American flag, it gives his revolver a red, white, and blue color scheme and his belt buckle now says "USA."
• What the Hell, Hero?: He's outraged when Gabriel murders Antonio even though the plan was to extract him.
  Cassidy: Reyes, what did you do?! This was NOT the plan!
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Lampshaded in one of his post-kill lines against Widowmaker, stating that he normally doesn't like having to kill women... except for her.
  Cassidy: I don't like shooting a lady. But for you, I'll make an exception.

Echo - ???

Echo

"When I see what I can do, I will know who I am."

Species: Robot
Age: Classified (1), 14 (2)
Birthday: February 5th
Occupation: Multirole Adaptive Robot
Base of Operations: Switzerland (formerly)
Affiliation: Overwatch
Appearances (shorts): Reunion, Zero Hour, Echo Origin Story.

"Personality synchronization: 100%. Good to be back."

Voiced by: Jeannie Bolet (English)^note Other Languages:Anna Gajewska (Polish), Françoise Cadol (French), So-yeon An (Korean), Ranja Bonalana (German), Jessica Ángeles (Latin American Spanish), Pilar Martín (European Spanish), Adna Cruz (Brazilian Portuguese), Zhanna Nikonova (Russian), Chifuyu (Japanese)

To chart the origins of the Echo project, it is important to delve into the personal history of Singaporean scientist Dr. Mina Liao, who would later become perhaps best known as one of the founding members of Overwatch. But prior to joining the organization, Dr. Liao was widely considered one of the preeminent experts in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence, and an employee of Omnica Corporation. There she worked on the team that was responsible for the design and creation of the omnics that would ultimately wage war against humanity during the Omnic Crisis. Ultimately, it was this expertise that led her to be recruited into Overwatch to help stop her creations.

Even that catastrophe was not enough to dissuade Liao of her firmly held belief in the potential artificial life and its power to transform the lives of humanity for the better. She dreamed of improving upon the original omnic designs. These theories would become the foundation of the Echo project. However, due to Overwatch’s restrictions on artificial intelligence research and development after the Omnic Crisis, Liao was forced to limit Echo’s capabilities. What she created was a multirole, adaptive robot that could be programmed to learn different functions: anything from medical support to construction: but had serious limits to its independent decision making. Critically, Echo had multiple layers of protections, failsafes, and security to keep it under control. Echo was used successfully on test missions alongside Overwatch strike teams, but Overwatch leadership was reluctant to put it into full service.

However, the truth was that Liao had programmed Echo with a powerful, general artificial intelligence that learned by observation. After thousands of hours in the scientist’s presence, much of Liao’s behaviors (including her speech) were adopted by the Echo robot. This secret was known by very few, including Blackwatch agent Cole Cassidy, who had, at times, been assigned to guard the scientist. When Liao was killed in an attack on an Overwatch facility, Overwatch’s leadership was reluctant to continue pursuing such a dangerous project, and all development on Echo was shut down, and the robot was placed into quarantine.

Having joined up with the new Overwatch team to defend Paris against the Null Sector incursion, for the first time, Echo is seeing action as a full-fledged team member. But as she is exposed to new people, new ideas, and new situations without Dr. Liao to guide her, no one knows how she might evolve in the future.

Echo is a Damage character whose greatest strength is in her mobility and versatility, able to adapt to multiple battlefield combat roles. Within her offensive arsenal;

• With her primary fire, Tri-Shot, Echo fires short, shotgun-like blasts from her fingertips.
• Sticky Bombs can be launched in a volley that explode after a delay, whether they latch onto terrain or enemies themselves.
• Focusing Beam is a laser she can channel onto targets, dealing damage to enemies that greatly increases if they're at less than half health.
• Flight surges her into the air and briefly grants free flight for a few seconds.
• Glide is a passive ability that allows her to control the speed of her descent.
• With her ultimate ability, Duplicate, Echo duplicates herself after an enemy, gaining their HP and the full use of their abilities for a set duration, as well as a vastly increased generation rate for their ultimate ability. If the duplicated enemy is eliminated during the ultimate, they will be unable to switch heroes until the ultimate has finished.

---

• Achilles' Heel: Just like Pharah, her emphasis on aerial mobility often leaves her in wide open airspace without cover, and due to her fragility and lack of defensive options, players with hitscan weapons and good aim can seriously punish her.
• Actually Pretty Funny: One of her interactions with Reaper in Overwatch 2 shows that even he is impressed with how she imitates other's behavior.
  Reaper: Imitate me, and you'll regret it.
  Echo: Imitate me, and you'll regret it.
  Reaper: That's... not bad, actually.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: She's not actually this, but the possibility of it is the reason both Overwatch and the US Government had for quarantining her body after Dr. Liao was killed and the lab destroyed. The aftertaste of the Omnic Crisis gave them reservations about a powerful, adaptive robot.
• Always Someone Better: Whenever Echo imitates a hero, their respective ultimate builds up a lot faster, leading to things such as a Cassidy-Echo being able to use Deadeye two times in a row or an Ashe-Echo summoning multiple B.O.B.s if she's fast enough.
• Assimilation Backfire: Duplicate perfectly copies whatever character Echo has chosen — weaknesses and all. She possesses the same physical attributes, makes the same amount of noise, and has the same limitations. That means anything that counters the original character now also counters her.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Her main ability and function. Echo was built to adapt any situation and learn different skill sets just from observing them.
• Beam Spam: Her primary fire and the large bulk of her abilities are essentially this trope.
• Becoming the Costume: Her "Automaton" skin designs her after a service automaton of the Starwatch theme, giving her various space-themed dialogue, along with a few miscellaneous respawn lines about making necessary adjustments to "airfoil deminimizers," "the reserve siduscope," "supraloric foil resources," etc.
• Benevolent A.I.: Echo is cheerful, friendly, and was built for the purpose of proving that Omnics are not inherently threats to humanity.
• Bilingual Bonus: Some of her voice lines are spoken in Singlish, a Singaporean dialect which liberally borrows words of various languages, including Malay, Hokkien, and English (phrases such as "Double confirmed" or "Can or not?" come from Singlish vernacular).
• Blue Is Heroic: Her holographic projections, including her face and fingertips, and her lasers are all blue in color. Her energy blasts stay blue even when switched to other skins that change her facial color.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: While duplicating another hero with her ultimate, Echo will use their catchphrases, both when peforming their ultimates and using other abilities as well. The only exceptions to this are Roadhog (who just laughs when he uses his) and Bastion (who can't speak).
• Classified Information: Echo cites this as to why she can't tell Junkrat how her Sticky Bomb ability works. Junkrat responds he will try to figure it out on his own, using glue.
• Cyber Cyclops: What her actual "face" looks like. The eye itself is what projects her holographic face, and is what allows her to perform her analyzation routines. Her "Camo" and "Stealth" skins play the trope straight.
• Death from Above: Similar to Pharah, her gameplay greatly leans towards taking to the skies and raining firepower onto her adversaries while out of their reach. Unlike how Pharah is generally more about sustaining altitude and regularly bombarding enemies with her rocket launcher, Echo is more reliant on her cooldown-based abilities to strike in manageable bursts, swooping in and using her offensive arsenal to quickly blow enemies up before retreating.
• Difficult, but Awesome: She isn't exactly the hardest hero to pick up (her official difficulty rating is only 2 out of 3 stars), but Duplicate requires that players have at least a fundamental knowledge of how enemy heroes are played in order to best throw their power back onto them. Her base kit also has quite a high skill ceiling as she gets access to a ton of powerful weapons to fight enemies with, but actually properly utilizing them while zooming through the air with little defensive tools is easier said than done.
• Ditto Fighter: Her ultimate ability, Duplicate, enables her to briefly mimic the appearance and abilities of almost any enemy hero she chooses — to the point where "her" ultimate charges up far quicker than normal. The only case where this doesn't work is if the enemy hero in question is also Echo.
• Do-Anything Robot: Echo was designed to learn, adapt and perform any suitable role including piloting and medical support. Ironically, the one thing she's explicitly restricted from doing is making independent decisions.
• Early-Bird Cameo: A very similar-looking Omnic appears in the group shot at the end of the cinematic trailer, with a face resembling Echo's before her holographic one turns on but without the wings. She was revealed to be the 32nd hero for the game in March 2020.
• Energy Ball: Sticky Bombs has her to shoot orbs of energy that latch on to targets before exploding. Additionally, her primary fire is a trio of smaller energy balls that she fires from her right hand.
• Energy Weapon: She shoots lasers out of her finger tips as her primary method of combat. And she comes with a variety of them; A trio of energy bullets, sticky energy bombs and a focused laser beam.
• Everything Is An I Pod In The Future: Echo basically looks like a grown-up Eve from WALL•E. She is white, shiny, sleek, and has a pleasant, English-accented voice.
• Explosive Stupidity: Her Sticky Bombs can damage her too if she's not careful.
• Fembot: A very feminine looking robot, with an Impossible Hourglass Figure and long eyelashes on her holographic face, as opposed to Orisa's more unisex design.
• Finishing Move: Focusing Beam is intended to be used as one, as it quadruples its damage when used on a target (not just enemies, but also turrets and shields) when they're below half health.
• Floating Limbs: Echo's arms, legs, and wings are detached from her body.
• Flight: She has an ability named this, and it provides exactly what you expect. Unlike Pharah's flight, she gains full maneuverability of her flight path for three seconds after launching, but once it's over, she can't maintain altitude by hovering, only controlling her descent by gliding.
• Flying Firepower: She’s able to fly and shoot energy beams. The developers even commented that she was created with the goal of feeling like a futuristic fighter jet, inspiring her sleek, winged design.
• Fragile Speedster: Echo has a high degree of flight control and mobility which she can use to lay down her firepower, but like Pharah, she has no other defensive options and can be easy to punish in open airspace.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Echo was built by the remorseful Dr. Liao to be highly adaptable to any situation and show that humans and Omnics could coexist in peace, with her specializations implied to be humanitarian in nature, such as medical support to construction. This makes it quite odd that, for all her gentle voice, non-threatening design, friendly mannerism and purpose, in-game Echo is a highly destructive Damage hero with sticky grenades and a beam that does more damage when the target is at low health. Echo in fact started development as a support character, but with her Duplicate ult considered fundamental to her identity as a distinct character and lending itself to damage, it was decided to change her intended role.
• Glass Cannon: Echo's attacks can melt even Tanks in seconds if they connect and stack on each other, but she has little in the way of defense or durability.
• Hand Blast: Her primary fire has her shoot small triple-shots of energy from her fingertips.
• Hard Light: Her "face" and most of her abilities utilize blue holographic light which can form shapes, explode on impact, and even completely copy a person down to their unique abilities.
• Heart Drive: Her heart/brain seems to be a small chip roughly the shape and size of a guitar pick that's inserted into her chestplate. It was separated from her body and was in Cassidy's possession, for reasons unknown.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Thanks to the technology of Hard Light, Echo is able to materialize any components she needs to copy another character's powers, abilities or weapons. This includes entirely separate and complicated devices, such as D.Va and Wrecking Ball's mechs, or even B.O.B..
• Impossible Hourglass Figure: As part of her Fembot aesthetic, her "waist" is impossibly thin—narrowing to almost the same size as a human limb.
• No Ontological Inertia: Any separate object that Echo creates while using Duplicate (Torbjörn's turret, Wrecking Ball's mines, B.O.B) will disappear shortly after the ultimate is over. This is even includes non-damageable objects like Hanzo's Dragonstrike and Moira's Biotic Orb.
• Light Is Good: She's a member of the new Overwatch, and her color scheme is white and blue with gold highlights.
• Light 'em Up: She shoots her enemies up with bolts and beams of energy.
• Magikarp Power: Echo's Focusing Beam does rather middling damage to anyone at above half-health, but for those below half, it can kill them off in seconds. This goes for Tanks and their large healthpools as well.
• Meaningful Name: Echo is a robot who has closely mirrored her creator's appearance and personality, as well as perform several different roles after learning through observation.
• Mundane Utility: She's able to use her wings as a floating seat and do a Curtsy. And one of her sprays shows her learning how to cook.
• New Ability Addiction: Echo was built to learn anything from anyone, and many of her voicelines indicate how much she enjoys this function of her programming, reacting with awe or glee whenever she sees one of her teammates do something she hasn't seen or previously didn't understand.
• Parts Unknown: She has no officially-listed nationality, likely on account of her status being constantly in transit. The closest thing she has to a home country is Switzerland, the location of the Overwatch HQ where she was developed.
• Power Copying: Her ultimate, Duplicate, allows her to copy an enemy's entire moveset and health stats, with the added bonus of being able charge their ultimate in seconds. In PvE modes, she instead does the same but with allies.
• Power Floats: Hovers weightlessly in the air, though unlike Zenyatta it definitely isn't mystical. Her passive ability allows her to glide to the ground, like Mercy does.
• Red Is Heroic: Her "Hot Rod" skin is this, while changing her face and fingers to be yellow.
• Reincarnation: A technological variation. During her time in Dr. Liao's lab, Echo observed and picked up on Liao's habits, personality traits, and speech (Hence her Singlish voice lines) from spending hours around her. To drive this home, Dr. Liao's final thoughts sync in with Echo's speech at the end of her the animation short.
  Liao: All I wanted... all I needed...
  Liao/Echo: ...was to help the world.
  Echo: And so she created me. Her legacy. Her promise. Her Echo.
• Reused Character Design: Echo's appearance recycles an unused character design from the game's early concept phase.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: Omnics have very inhuman, mechanical faces with emotions only being displayed through their voice tones or the brightness of their eyes. Echo has a fully-detailed holographic humanoid face that allows for a range of emotions and nuance that most Omnics don't have. This was likely intentional, as her creator was stated to be working on ways of improving human-Omnic relations.
• Pretty Butterfly: Well, her "Butterfly" skin. And she certainly does look pretty.
• Sealed Good in a Can: She was developed as a Benevolent A.I., but Overwatch got cold feet at the idea of putting her into full service, and after her creator was killed in an attack on their facility, they opted to shut the whole project down, placing Echo's body into quarantine, where she remained dormant for years after the organization fell. She only came back online after Cassidy found her by the time of Reunion, summoning her to answer Winston's recall message and join the new Overwatch.
• Ship Tease: Cassidy spent a fair amount of his time guarding the top-secret laboratory where Dr. Liao created and housed Echo, and befriended them both, with their later interactions in Reunion being very gentle and romantic, but it's unclear if there's anything serious going on between them. In-game, he is one of the few characters Echo will react to, teasing him if she eliminates him, complimenting him for kills, and gasping in shock if he's killed.
• Short-Range Shotgun: Her Tri-Shot fires a limited shotgun burst which, similar to Doomfist's Hand Cannon, fires projectiles rather than instant hitscan. This implicitly encourages Echo to stay a moderate distance from enemies while in combat, afar enough to avoid easy enemy punishment, but also close enough to make her primary fire do more than simply scratch her targets.
• The Sneaky Guy: Much like Zenyatta and Sigma, she constantly hovers over the ground. Meaning she can sneak past enemy players without making any noise.
• Sticky Bomb: Her alt-fire is firing a volley of these, each one sticking onto terrain or the first enemy hit, then exploding after a delay.
• Winged Humanoid: Has two floating wings at her back. They're also highly flexible, which she demonstrate while flying or in her emotes.
• You Are Already Dead: Her Sticky Bombs will doom anyone without the health, defensive abilities, or team support to survive them. Once they're attached, the target has about one second to live.

Genji - Japan

Genji Shimada

"Peace returns to those who wish for it."

Species: Human cyborg
Age: 35 (1), 37 (2)
Birthday: October 28th
Occupation: Adventurer
Base of Operations: Shambali Monastery, Nepal
Affiliation: Shimada Clan (formerly), Overwatch
Appearances (shorts): Cinematic Trailer (cameo), Recall (cameo), Dragons, Doomfist Origin Story, Moira Origin Story (cameo), Zero Hour
Appearances (comics): "Reflections" (cameo), "Uprising", "Retribution"
Appearances (Archives events): Retribution, Storm Rising

"Mi o sutetemo, myouri wa sutezu." ^Translation"You can abandon your body, but never let go of your honor."

Voiced by: Gaku Space (English)^note Other Languages:Oscar Flores (Latin American Spanish), Fran Jiménez (European Spanish), Yoshihisa Kawahara (Japanese), Bernard Gabay (French), Paolo De Santis (Italian), Yusuke Yamasaki (German), Paulo Vignolo (Brazilian Portuguese) Hye-seong Kim (Korean), Xi Hu Town (Taiwanese Chinese), Péng Bó (Mandarin Chinese), Grzegorz Kwiecień (Polish), Alexander Tsoi (Russian)

A Cyborg Ninja and member of Overwatch.

Originally the lazy younger son of the master of the Shimada Ninja clan, Genji Shimada was raised to be a skilled Ninja with his brother Hanzo, but wasn't interested in his family's illegal business. Tension built between Genji and the clan until eventually the clan Elders pressured Hanzo into a violent confrontation with his younger brother. Nearly killed by his injuries, he was rescued by Overwatch, but just barely. The damage that had been done was so severe that they offered to rebuild his body through extensive cyberization in exchange for his help in the dismantling of his former clan.

In the years that followed, Genji became a successful agent within Overwatch as a member of their global task force assigned to Blackwatch under Gabriel Reyes. Over time, however, he began to feel extremely conflicted with what he had become. Feeling alone in the world and unable to come to grips with his mechanical body, he abandoned Overwatch before its eventual dissolution. He drifted from one place to another, looking for meaning until eventually, he met Zenyatta the omnic monk. Through Zenyatta's teachings, Genji was slowly able to come to terms with his half-man-half-machine existence and feel at peace with himself.

Genji was one of the agents that were recalled to serve Overwatch after Winston reinstated the organization. At the time, he was in Japan, pursuing his brother Hanzo near Hanamura.

When Null Sector attacked Paris, Genji was the first recalled member to arrive and back up the heavily outnumbered squad of Winston, Tracer and Mei. After the battle, Genji officially rejoined Overwatch.

As a Damage character, Genji relies on agility and mobility to attack foes from both close and medium range.

• His primary fire consists of Shuriken, projectiles which he fires in threes, either one after another in quick succession or out all at once in a fan for a wider range.
• Swift Strike allows him to dash forward in an instant, damaging all enemies he passes through and resetting its cooldown if he gets an elimination.
• Deflect both protects himself from the front and sends incoming projectiles back towards his opponents.
• His passive is Cyber Agility, which allows him to climb walls and also double jump in mid-air.
• With his ultimate, Dragonblade, Genji pulls out his katana and uses it as his main weapon for a few seconds, delivering highly damaging slashes at melee range.

---

• Achilles' Heel: His Deflect only works on projectiles, and fails on beam-type attacks used by Mei, Zarya, Winston, Symmetra, and Moira. Winston, Symmetra (until her rework on June 2018), and Moira's weapons are especially problematic, as their weapons come with an auto-tracking system that also nullifies his agility, with Winston being considered a hard counter to Genji in higher-tier plays.
• Animal Motifs: The dragon and the sparrow. Dragons are an important symbol of the Shimada clan and used in his special attack. "Sparrow" is a childhood nickname given to Genji by his father as well as the name of one of his Legendary skins. The feather of a Japanese Sparrowhawk is used to represent him in key moments of the "Dragons" short, and his helmet is shaped like that species's beak.
• Appropriated Appellation: According to an interaction with Cassidy, his "Sparrow" nickname given to him by his father was intended to be an insult, but he grew to like it.
• Artificial Limbs: It's unclear to what extent, but considering he reloads his shurikens from inside his right arm, it's clear that at least some of his limbs have been replaced in his transformation. The Uprising comic and "Blackwatch" skin showed that he, at least at one point, had retained the left side of his body from the chest up. In a conversation with Cassidy in "Retribution", he admits that he agreed to become a cyborg because he wanted to be able to walk again, meaning one or both of his legs are prosthetics.
• Attack Reflector: Deflect allows Genji to reflect most projectiles back towards his attackers. However, it doesn't work against beam-esque weapons like Mei's cryogun's spray mode or Zarya's beam cannon.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Downplayed. He's not as bad as his brother at this and it's not a dominant personality trait. However, Genji occasionally calls enemies he eliminated "Aho ga!" (you fool/idiot), two of his emotes are a non-verbal Badass Boast and a Bring It gesture, and a few of his voice lines are a bit condescending.
  You are only human.
  I'm not impressed.
• Baritone of Strength: Genji's voice is synthesized and quite deep, befitting his status as an extremely dangerous ninja, and one of the game's potentially most powerful heroes.
• Becoming the Costume:
  • A bit more subtle than most examples in the game, but his "Blackwatch" skin gives him a few more grunts while using Swift Strike, most of which sound slightly deeper and angrier than normal.
  • His "Sentai" and "Genjiman" skins are a straighter example, as he makes grunts and screams as well as quotes from Japanese tokusatsu series, specifically Super Sentai and Kamen Rider.
  • The "Halloween 2017 Update" changed his Ultimate line while wearing his "Oni" skin into "Oni no ken o kurae!!"^TranslationTaste the Demon's Blade at the enemy or "The demon becomes me!" if an ally hears it.
  • His "Baihu"^TranslationMandarin Chinese for "white tiger", read in Japanese as "byakko". skin also changes his ultimate callout to "Byakko no ken o kurae!"^TranslationTaste the blade of the White Tiger! when heard by enemies or the player, "The White Tiger becomes me!" when heard by allies.
  • His "Kendoka" skin gives him a handful of more lines referencing formal kendo duels, including a short "Ki-o-tsuke!" ("Attention!") or "Hansoku!" ("Foul!") while deflecting, and a very formal "Arigato gozaimashita!" ("Thank you very much!").
  • His "Cyber Demon" skin gives him a wide smattering of new lines, identifying as a brutal, ambiguously demonic cyborg assassin who wields "the light" as part of his arsenal. His animation on the character select screen also changes to him appearing from a cloak of light, and his voice (at least to those who are playing as him) gains a deeper echo effect. To teammates, his ultimate callout turns into "The light becomes me!"
• Big Damn Heroes: Saves the others from the Titan's attack in Zero Hour, signifying the return of Overwatch in the process.
• Blood Knight: During his time in Blackwatch, Genji was all too eager to rush to the mission or draw his blade for combat. During Retribution, he doesn't even ask who their target was until after he's been killed, and seems to be there mostly just for killing power. He's since mellowed out in the present day, though.
• Body Horror: As seen in the "Dragons" short, his near-death experience has left his face scarred and weathered, with an unhealthy pallor and visible veins. The rest of his body presumably hasn't fared better. His "Blackwatch" skin shows off a fuller extent of his injuries, including some hefty scarring along his left arm and chest. A line in the "Retribution" event asserts that he's in constant agony from it.
  Cassidy: What's it like Genji? You know... as a cyborg.
  Genji: Pain and agony. And what am I? Man or machine?
  Cassidy: Then why did you agree to it?
  Genji: I wanted to be able to walk again.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: As shown by his Legendary Skins, he had fairly prominent eyebrows as a young man.
• Bilingual Bonus: Genji peppers his dialogue with Japanese, speaking it almost as much as he speaks English.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Even in his former life, Genji excelled in his ninja training, like his brother Hanzo. However, he preferred to fool around and live the high life instead. He's outgrown this after becoming a cyborg.
• Bring It: His "Challenge" emote even has him do the typical hand gesture à la Neo from The Matrix.
• Cain and Abel: Was almost killed by his older brother Hanzo during a violent confrontation after their father's death. After beating Hanzo in the "Dragons" short and refusing to kill him, Genji forgives him, but Hanzo himself is a lot more conflicted when it comes to his brother.
• Close-Range Combatant: He can use his shuriken to whittle his enemies from afar, but the majority of his damage comes from medium to close range. A typical combo is R2 shuriken followed by a Quick Melee, with Swift Strike as either an opener or finisher. His ultimate ability invokes this, as he loses the capability to use his shuriken for the duration.
• Color Motifs: Both his appearance and dragon-based ultimate ability have a lot of green in them. Green promotes harmony and symbolizes growth and rebirth. The Genji of the Shimada clan died at the hands of his older brother Hanzo and was revived by Overwatch to become Genji the cyborg, one of the playable characters. He also became more mature and wiser since then, a stark contrast to his past hedonistic ways. Green is also a color of youth and naivety, something Hanzo accuses him of having in the "Dragons" short when Genji expresses hope for his brother turning to the side of good.
• Combos: His damage per hit is mediocre; he needs to quickly chain his abilities and stack up the damage to kill his target. See Death of a Thousand Cuts.
• Cool Sword: Two of them, a wakizashi for his basic abilities and a katana for his ultimate.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • His fight with Hanzo in Dragons. Hanzo fails to hit Genji with any of his arrows or land a single hit on him in close quarters.
  • He's on the receiving end of one against Doomfist during the latter's origin story trailer. Genji makes a commendable effort to stand his ground, but despite all his agility and swordplay, he's unable to leave a mark and a single good punch is all it takes to take him out of the fight and leave him struggling to stand.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Played with. That fancy move at the end of the Dragons short where Genji deflects Hanzo's Dragonstrike? Surely you can't pull that off in-game — deflecting an Ultimate and turning it upon the enemy team with one of your standard skills would just be cheesy, right? Turns out you can, but you have to use Deflect rather than Dragonblade^note Deflect can be used during Dragonblade, but can reflect Dragonstrike without it, and you have to reflect the arrow before the dragons spawn from it.
• Cyber Ninja: He's a cyborg ninja, to the degree that he produces shuriken out of one arm.
• Dash Attack: Swift Strike sends him lunging forward for a 50-damage slash to enemies caught in its slash.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Outside of his ultimate ability, the most damage Genji can deal is a mere 50 per hit.^detailsShuriken deals 28 base damage each, his melee deals 30, and Swift Strike deals 50. But he can quickly stack these damages on top of each other, and this is how he gets the majority of his kills.
• Decomposite Character: He and his brother were originally one cyber ninja in concept named Hanzo, but the design was deemed too unfocused and crammed with too many ninja weapons and gimmicks. Rather than completely scrap the idea, the character was made into two brothers, with Genji inheriting the cyborg aspect and sword usage the original character had. Fittingly, he's the younger brother of the two.
• Delinquent Hair: The Legendary "Young Genji" skin shows him with spiky, light green hair, which is canon according to a picture of him and Hanzo in Nepal.
• Difficult, but Awesome: He's rated three stars in difficulty for a reason: his abilities are far less straightforward than most other Offense heroes, and using him well requires good aiming, clever positioning, and quick reflexes. A good Genji is a Lightning Bruiser who'll use his superior mobility to flank the enemy from angles they won't expect, capable of slaughtering entire teams by himself while turning their own firepower against them, and then vanishing as quickly as he appeared.
• The Dog Bites Back: The Shimada Clan elders ordered Genji's death for his "disobedience", and he only barely survived after being rescued by Overwatch and made into a Cyborg. Afterwards, he joined up with Overwatch and spearheaded operations against his former clan. It was thanks to Genji that the Shimada Clan was dismantled and declined to a state of near-nonexistence. They were likely none the wiser that the man who dismantled their empire was, in fact, the disobedient one.
• Double Jump: His unique passive ability lets him do this.
• Dynamic Entry: A common way to unleash his Dragonblade is to Double Jump and Swift Strike above the enemy team, and activate Dragonblade^*it also resets Swift Strike's cooldown. If done right, the only warning the enemy will get is Genji's Ultimate callout before he lands right in the middle of the team and eviscerate them all.
  • Evokes this twice in Zero Hour: once to save Winston by deflecting enemy fire, and another time to save Tracer from being crushed by a giant Omnic hand.
• Early-Bird Cameo: He was seen in the cinematic trailer, roughly a year before his introduction.
• Emergency Transformation: After he was left for dead by Hanzo, Overwatch was only able to save Genji's life by rebuilding and replacing what they could.
• Everything's Better with Samurai: As if being a cyborg ninja wasn't enough, his "Bushi" skin decks him out in fullblown samurai armor.
• Finishing Move: Zig-zagged with Swift Strike. Its cooldown resets on a kill, thus there's an incentive to use it to finish off wounded enemies. However, there's nothing stopping you from using it as an opening move against full-health enemies, though if you cannot DM them to death, you may be left with no speedy escape mechanism. That said, it's also commonly used for mobility, from extra travel speed to reaching tricky spots.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The foolish, hedonistic younger brother of the dutiful, responsible Hanzo, back when both of them were living in Hanamura and their scuffle that led to Genji's cybernetic transformation hadn't happened yet.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: One of his unlockable lines is: "My Halloween costume? Cyborg Ninja."
• Foreign Cuss Word: "Kuso!" (roughly meaning "Damn!" or "Shit!"), spoken whenever he's hit with an Orb of Discord and unlockable for manual use.
• Four Gods: The Year of the Dog Chinese New Year event turns him into Baihu (Byakko), the White Tiger. There is a stylized glowing white tiger symbol on his chest.
• Friendly Rivalry:
  • If Zenyatta is on the enemy team, the two will treat their skirmishes like a sparring session.
    Genji: I have the upper hand this time, Master.
  • He and Cassidy have a pre-match interaction wagering a bet against each other.
  Cassidy: You might be fast, Genji, but you ain't faster than a bullet.

Genji: Why don't we find out?

• Full-Frontal Assault: A hilariously unintentional and retroactive case of this. Some omnics wear human clothes and some don't, with Genji falling in the latter category, but this is never given any real attention since he's a Cyborg with a largely armored robot body either way. However, his updated design in Overwatch 2 gives him an outfit overtop it including a casual hoodie and pants — according to the art team, they originally depicted him with just a hoodie, but they swiftly realized that this created an implication that he's been otherwise "naked" all the time, leading them to give him some pants as well.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: As this video shows, it's possible for Genji to reflect Hanzo's ultimate back at him, just like he does in the "Dragons" animated short. One difference is that in the game, he can only do it when Hanzo's ultimate is still an arrow, while in the animated short, he does it when the arrow's turned into the two dragons and he has to use his own ultimate to do so.
• Gratuitous English: Interestingly invoked in his "Sentai" skin, especially amusing considering his normal manner of speaking. The skin's bonus lines have him channel typical Large Ham Sentai heroes, including stiltedly-translated English battle phrases, such as "Unbreakable body!" or "Fantastic technique!"
• The Hedonist: Pursued a playboy lifestyle in his former life.
• Heel–Face Turn: Although it is debatable when he did turn. While he did join Overwatch, he notably joined Blackwatch rather than the main group, he didn't mind their darker actions and in fact enjoyed the killing, and his dismantling of the Shimada clan might well have been revenge for what they did rather than noble intentions. However, with Zenyatta's help, he's become a genuinely good person.
• Hero Antagonist: Falls to this role in the second half of "Dragons" when Hanzo mistakes him for an assassin and attacks him. The short sets up for Genji to have every right and motivation to kill Hanzo when he defeats his brother, but instead he's revealed to have forgiven Hanzo for his attempt to murder him and even hopes Hanzo will choose the right side.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Despite being a ninja, Genji by default wears bright silver armor, and has many glowing neon green lights emitting from his body and equipment. Made better or worse by his "Blackwatch" garb depending on how you see it: while it does away with the silver and actually gives him dark-colored armor, his lights now glow red.
  • The Dragons short demonstrates that, at a minimum, he can turn off the lights when appropriate.
• Hitbox Dissonance: Deflect has a generous hitbox. A very generous hitbox.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Whenever you hear a clanking noise and see Genji whipping his blade around, STOP SHOOTING AT HIM. Unless you know what you're doing, or are playing a hero who doesn't use ballistics, you're only getting those attacks reflected back at you, or worse, redirected to your teammates.
  • If you're playing a hero who uses constant-stream energy-based weapons like Zarya, Winston, Mei, or Symmetra, however, feel free to keep zapping at him, just don't use your secondary fire while doing it if you have one. Inverted in the case of Lucío, however, as Genji can deflect his primary fire blasts, but not the Soundwave.
  • Moira is an interesting case, since while her Biotic Grasp is fair game, Genji can deflect her Biotic Orbs.
• Human Pet: Ramattra thinks Genji is this to Zenyatta.
• I Hate Past Me: Storm Rising implies that he really doesn't have fond memories of his time in Blackwatch and tries to distance himself from them.
  Tracer: Must be hard for us to gather all that intel with Blackwatch sidelined.
  Genji: I wouldn't know.
  Tracer: Don't you talk to your own teammates?
  Genji: No.
  Tracer: You talk to us, though!
  Mercy: He likes us better!
• "Instant Death" Radius: When Nano-Boosted, his Dragonblade deals 180 a slash. Considering most heroes have 200 max health and he still has Swift Strike for an extra 75 damage, he can kill most heroes in one dash-and-slash, have his dash reset, dash to another hero and continue the kill streak.
• Intergenerational Friendship: With Zenyatta. He is fifteen years his senior, yet Genji is the student in their relationship.
• In the Hood: Part of his new look when he saves Winston in "Zero Hour". It even has his signature Tron Lines.
• Katanas Are Just Better: He wields a wakizashi that he uses to deflect projectiles and a katana to One-Hit KO opponents.
• Lightning Bruiser: He is very mobile thanks to his ability to run on walls and double jump, can deal high damage while on the move with his Swift Strike and Dragon Blade abilities, and while his Health is average, being only 200, he can use Deflect to send most enemy shots back at them to both avoid their damage and hurt his enemies even further.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Kiriko, albeit moreso as "Like Uncle and Niece". Due to Kiriko's mother training both Shimada brothers in swordplay, the younger Kiriko grew up alongside both Genji and Hanzo as a niece-like figure to them, and the brothers clearly hold a lot of respect for her, which she does reciprocate in kind. That said, she is stated to be closer to Genji overall; both were troublemakers as kids and often hung around the arcades in Hanamura, and Genji often took the time to steal sweets for her when she visited the Shimada castle.
• Meaningful Name: Named after the titular character from The Tale of Genji, which is fitting considering his past as The Hedonist.
• Named Weapon: According to the Overwatch Visual Source Book, Genji's sword is called "Ryu-ichimonji."^TranslationRyu-ichimonji (龍一文字, sword inscribed with the characters "dragon" and "one") is a reference to the historical "Kiku-ichimonji" (菊一文字, sword inscribed with the characters "chrysanthemum" and "one").
• Never My Fault: In "Storm Rising", Genji tries to deny any involvement with the Venice incident. Tracer points out that he was there, but he claims he was just a bystander.
• Nice Guy: Even before his supposed death, Genji had little interest in the Shimada Clan's organized crime, preferring eating ramen and playing video games instead. Zenyatta's teachings afterwards has only further strengthened his compassion, making him one of the least confrontational or hostile heroes in the game. He's even forgiven Hanzo for his failed attempt to brutally murder him.
• Ninja: Obvious based on his design, but additionally, an effective way to play as Genji is by thinking like a ninja itself. Not the highly visible one, but instead one who sneaks and stalks from the shadows, assassinating and eliminating single targets that dropped their guard down or strayed away from formation, and getting out of sight just as quick. A Genji who bum-rushes to the enemy ranks from the front is more than likely to contribute very little or get killed off alone.
• Ninja Pirate Robot Zombie: Genji is a ninja cyborg ex-Yakuza with a little bit of Samurai in his use of a katana and wakizashi.
• Ninja Run: He leans forward while running, with one hand in front of him holding his shurikens, and one hand behind him holding his wakizashi.
• No-Sell:
  • An interesting property with Genji's Deflect is that while it won't reflect their damage, it will completely parry all melee attacks except for another Genji's Dragonblade. He can even parry Reinhardt's Rocket Hammer.
    (when parrying Reinhardt's hammer) "Rising hammer, intercepting sword!"
  • In a verbal example with pre-battle banter, Sombra may try to dangle Genji's past over his head as a thinly veiled threat. It doesn't have the desired effect.
    Sombra: You wouldn't believe what I learned about you… Sparrow.
    Genji: I am at peace with who I was. Your threat does not concern me.
• Offhand Backhand: The cinematic for the "Storm Rising" event shows him disabling several vehicles approaching his from behind by throwing shuriken into their hover lifts without looking.
• Paint It Black: As shown in "Uprising" and in his "Blackwatch" skin, his former armor was black and red. It also has a Blackwatch logo on it.
• Parrying Bullets: Deflect will throw back any bullets shot at him, making Genji actually effective in charging right through a turret or Bastion and killing them with their own fire. However, beam-like weapons like Winston's, Zarya's, Symmetra's, or Mei's cannot be deflected.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: When activating his ultimate.
  (previously) "Ryuu Gekiken!" ^Translation"Dragon Fencing!"
  (currently) "Ryuujin no ken o kurae!!" ^Translation"Taste the blade of the Dragon God!"
  (with the Oni skin) "Oni no ken o Kurae!!" ^Translation"Taste the Demon's Blade!"
  (ally Genji) "The dragon becomes me!"
  (ally Genji with Oni skin) "The demon becomes me!"
• The Quiet One: He was noticeably very quiet during his time in Blackwatch and the events of Retribution, rarely taking part in the team's banter and solely speaking for ability callouts or to alert his team of danger. He seems to have mostly grown out of this by the time he joined Overwatch proper, though one of his pre-fight lines has him say that he enjoys working with Winston because of the lack of small talk.
  Moira: Much more talkative now, aren't you, Genji?
  Genji: I find the company more agreeable these days.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Genji calls out Hanzo in the "Dragons" video for thinking an annual offering of incense will honor his brother's memory when action is needed.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The "Uprising" comic shows that during his Blackwatch days, his eyes were, for some odd reason, bright red. They seem to have gone back to normal by the time of "Dragons", though. The "Retribution" event's opening cutscene also shows that they glowed in the dark.
• Scarf of Asskicking: His black headband, which appears to be a part of his cyborg design.
• Sentai: His literally-named Sentai skin is themed after classic Sentai media.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: His choice in outfit is indicative of how well he thinks of himeslf. His Blackwatch era has the area where his implants and flesh meet exposed with assymetrical exposed machinery as a reflection of his self hate over his condition. His default skin is more sleek and covering, showing that he is more at peace with himself but isn't quite ready to consider himself a person again yet. And his new Overwatch 2 default has him put on clothes again indicating that he is ready to reclaim his identity as a person again.
• Ship Tease: With Mercy:
  • Both have special lines if the other dies, he is shown sending her a letter in the Christmas comic, and the two have voice interactions on White Day/Valentine's Day where they exchange chocolates.
  • Storm Rising expands upon this, by revealing that Genji frequently chats with Mercy about her research, drinks her coffee while no one else would, and she even ask him to take her to dinner after the mission. Tracer comments on it.
    Tracer: You and Dr. Ziegler are getting along well, aren't you?
    Genji: She's the only one awake at night on base.
    Tracer: Is that all?
    Genji: And I'm the only one who can drink her coffee!
• Shonen Hair: As evinced by his "Young Genji"/"Sparrow" skins, he had short spiky hair in his youth. He still had it while he was in Blackwatch.
• Shout-Out: After the decision was made to split the concept of the Japanese ninja hero (named Hanzo in the development stages) into two separate characters, the idea of giving them an intense Sibling Rivalry was loosely based on the rivalry between sushi chefs Oni Yoshikaze and Takashi in the documentary film Jiro Dreams of Sushi.
• Super-Strength: According to Mercy in Valkyrie anyway, while struggling to lift some rocks to save two children and listing him off among the Overwatch members (Reinhardt, Winston and Soujourn) she wished were there to do it instead. Best shown in Zero Hour, where he slices a giant robot hand to give an opening to Tracer.
• Spell Blade: His Limit Break summons his ancestral dragon to empower his katana, allowing him to use it for cleaving slashes.
• Spoiled Brat: Was coddled and protected by his father, which later led to him developing more interest in pursuing the fast life and less interest in upholding the clan's (criminal) traditions.
• Smoke Out: He can't actually use it in-game, but at the end of Dragons, he disappears in a cloud of smoke.
• Stages of Monster Grief: As intended in "Retribution" lines, during his Blackwatch days, he often wondered if he even counted as human anymore since so much of him was machine. After he improves with Zenyatta, whether he's man or machine doesn't matter to him anymore.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: Uses shurikens as his main weapon on top of a katana and wakizashi.
• Summon Magic: Like Hanzo, he summons a dragon as part of his ultimate, but unlike Hanzo, he doesn't attack with it directly, only using it to infuse his sword with power. In "Dragons", he also uses it to reflect Hanzo's own dragons back against him.
• Token Good Teammate: Was this to the Shimada Clan while he was still a member. He had no interest in their criminal activities, and was only a part of the clan because he was born into it. Sadly, this did not sit well with the elders, who ordered Hanzo to murder him.
• Trademark Favorite Food: When he was human, Genji loved ramen. He'll react to the ramen shop in the Hanamura level with excitement, but then lament that eating it isn't the same anymore.
• Tron Lines: His visor and cylinders on his body glow a neon green light. He can apparently suppress the light when he chooses, as seen in the "Dragons" cinematic.
• Unorthodox Reload: His robotic right forearm stores a considerable number of shuriken, which it feeds directly into (and through) his hand. Reloading consists of loading even more shuriken from somewhere higher up the arm. Closer inspection at slower animation speed shows that his shurikens are composed of 3 separate, tiny kunai-like pieces which then unfold into a 3-pointed shuriken. Before his cybernetic enhancements, he had a glove with a similar mechanism built into it.
• Video Arcade: Mentions that he spent a lot of his time as a child in one, if on the attacking team on Hanamura. If he and D.Va are on the same team, he'll be shocked to learn that all his high scores have been beaten! In the sequel, his interactions with D.Va still show him to frequent them.
• Walking the Earth: Did this after leaving Overwatch, looking for a sign that his life had something worth living for.
• Wall Crawl: Just like Hanzo, with the extra bonus jumping again in mid-air.
• Wearing a Flag on Your Head: His Summer Games skin colors his body to resemble the Japanese flag (white with a red circle).
• We Can Rebuild Him: Rebuilt into a cyborg by Overwatch.
• What Have I Become?: He didn't like the thought of being a cyborg for the rest of his life at first. With Zenyatta's help, though, he eventually got over it.
• White Sheep: He held little interest in his clan's criminal activities, much to their ire. After he was turned into a cyborg by Overwatch, he began actively opposing his former family, interfering with their operations.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Still has faith that Hanzo can change his fate and turn good despite looking like a lost cause. As opposed to Hanzo, his 'code of honor' lies in 'actions', in which it translates to 'good deeds'.
  Hanzo: Real life is not like the stories our father told us! You were a fool for believing it so!
  Genji: Perhaps I am a fool to think there is still hope for you. But I do.
• Yakuza: Was once the younger son of the Shimada clan.
• You Are Already Dead: One of the initial effects of his Swift Strike ability was a damage over time effect, which would reset the cooldown on the ability if the enemy was killed by it. However, the damage over time was removed, while the cooldown reset remained.
• Younger Mentor, Older Disciple: His mentor is Zenyatta who is younger than him.
• Your Tradition Is Not Mine: After joining Overwatch, Genji actively acts against the Shimada clan's actions and works to bring them down.