Overwatch / Tropes A to C

Main Page | Tropes A-C | Tropes D-L | Tropes M-Z

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A

• Abnormal Ammo: A few characters' weapons fire unusual things such as scrap metal, molten slag, or chemical-filled darts.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: As players advance in level, they earn more and more ornate portrait borders. At multiples of 100 + 1, the portrait border reverts to the plainest version and a star is added beneath. Once the player has 5 stars, the next upgrade reverts to a plain border and no stars, but also changes the color of the border and stars from bronze, to silver, to gold, to platinum with gold stars. Obtaining the most ornate platinum border with 5 gold stars requires level 2391, which quite a handful of players already had, just to show how determined some could be.
• Acrophobic Bird: The Last Bastion shows two fighters perform close air support in the desperate battle to defend Stuttgart, but they fly lower than that role necessitates (especially against an enemy horde full of Bastions robots that can can serve as antiair platforms, and one indeed goes down in flames), and the camera immediately pans to the dropships deploying the Bastions, which would be far more suitable targets.
• Advanced Movement Technique:
  • In general, many characters with some sort of ability that propels them forward will be able to extend the length and speed of their self-propulsion by pressing and holding Jump while at peak momentum. This applies to abilities such as Mercy's Guardian Angel, Moira's Fade, and Doomfist's Rocket Punch. Also, the term "rollout" exists to describe the optimal way that a character can travel from any starting point (such as the spawn room) to a destination (such as the objective), and high level players are expected to know how to perform these rollouts.
  • Some characters have the ability to Rocket Jump, or otherwise boost themselves onto higher ground with their abilities. Examples include Soldier: 76 and Zarya, but it's considered essential to learning Pharah.
  • Another advanced technique is learning how to "slide" across slanted rooftops and ceilings where characters are technically allowed to land. Characters with high aerial mobility (such as Winston, Doomfist, Pharah, Echo, and others) can use this to stay airborne longer or to drop onto enemies unexpected.
  • Lucio is built with this trope in mind, being one of the most mobile characters in the entire game, and with the ability to slide along walls, which is faster than normal movement. Also, he gains a brief speed boost during a Wall Jump. A Lucio played at the highest skill ceiling can zip around pretty much anywhere at high speeds, and climb atop any structure in the game.
  • Mercy has a unique "ability" known as "Superjump", which allows her to redirect the momentum of her Guardian Angel to pop straight up into the air. It's considered one of the most necessary advanced tricks to playing Mercy at a high level, allowing her to escape from enemies on the ground.
  • Wrecking Ball has the fastest movement speed in the game, but to achieve it, the player must master his Grappling Claw ability, which allows him to Building Swing at high speeds. Knowing what he can and can't grapple from, which sections of the map can be swung over or around, and what angle he needs to fly in to get maximum speed and distance are all essential skills.
  • The absolute king of this trope is Doomfist. The number of advanced techniques that are necessary to be even a mediocre Doomfist are patently absurd, as every single one of his abilities provides him with different movement properties and can be used to both attack and escape. For example, there's Diagonal Punching, which allows him to Rocket Punch at an upward angle and is necessary for attacking enemies on high ground, such as snipers. New methods and techniques are constantly being found to make him even more mobile and difficult to counter.
• Adventure-Friendly World: Lightly deconstructed. While there are beautiful places to explore such as Numbani and Dorado, high technology, and almost utopian advancement of society; there are also wartorn areas, evil organizations such as Talon and Vishkar Corporation in abundance, and the game is placed in the aftermath of a Robot War. On top of that, Overwatch doesn't play into the No Endor Holocaust trope, and shows that yes, this is all very dangerous for the average bystander in the world. It would seem that all of the beauty, all the circumstances that led to these interesting characters and their contrasting philosophies, all of these had consequences. On top of that, with all the turmoil and factions that an enterprising hero could fight, there's one thing made clear: The world isn't safe, no matter how beautiful it looks.
• The Aesthetics of Technology: While individual characters come from all around the world with their own cultures, each of them has enough of a 'technological' aspect in their design that it unifies the art style as a whole. As an example, Hanzo is mostly a traditional samurai, but both his boots and his bow are teched up. Cassidy is 100% traditional cowboy, except for his cybernetic hand.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • The background of the setting involves a massive war caused when the machines du jour (called "omnics") suddenly decided to stop taking orders. However, the four playable omnics are a childlike and peace-loving amnesiac mobile artillery unit (Bastion), a not-quite-Buddhist robot monk (Zenyatta), a refurbished defense unit who protects Numbani (Orisa), and an omnic specifically created to be a hero who joined the Overwatch team (Echo). Overwatch 2 has since added Ramattra, the leader of omnic terrorist organization Null Sector as mentioned below.
  • The Anubis AI featured in Mission Statement isn't too fond of humans.
  • Null Sector is an entire Omnic terrorist organization.
• Air-Dashing: Hanzo has this as an ability. Tracer, Genji, and Brigitte can all do this as well by using their respective Blink, Swift Strike, and Shield Bash abilities while in midair.
• Alternate Reality Game: The "Sombra ARG" lasted from Ana's initial announcement up until her eventual announcement (June to November 2016), taking the form of several videos, screenshots and website descriptions containing incredibly well-hidden encrypted codes hinting at her presence within the world. The decoding process has been extremely complex, and a summary of fans' findings can be seen here.
• Alternate Universe: The game has dabbled in this from time to time for seasonal events, exploring different non-canon scenarios that adapt the game's playable cast into new themes beyond the sci-fi near-future setting of the main game.
  • "Junkenstein's Revenge" (introduced in the game's very first Halloween event in 2016) is an homage to classic gothic monster movies, with a band of nameless heroes fighting off the forces of the mad Dr. Jamison Junkenstein. The canon received a recurring seasonal brawl of the same name, as well as a sequel brawl for Overwatch 2 titled "Wrath of the Bride", featuring the Bride of Junkenstein seeking to finish what mayhem the late doctor had started.
  • "Starwatch" (introduced in season 4 of Overwatch 2) is a classic Space Opera setting in the flavor of Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy, following the rebel resistance of The Watchers fighting against the iron-fisted Infinite Empire. The story received a dedicated brawl titled "Starwatch: Galactic Rescue", featuring the Watchers storming the empire's base to rescue 3CH-0. Many of the cast members were flipped around in alignment: the likes of Doomfist and Ashe were made as part of the heroes, while Sigma became the Big Bad, with D.Va, Mercy, Sojourn and Soldier: 76 serving as his the empire's forces.
  • "Questwatch" (introduced in season 5) is a fantasy-themed reimagining of Overwatch, framed in-universe as a Tabletop RPG run by Emily, played by Tracer and her new allies in Overwatch. The main story follows Tracer traveling the magical kingdom of Overland along with her companions to become a knight.
• An Adventurer Is You: The heroes are split into three different groups, forming a typical Damager, Healer, Tank structure:
  • Damage: These heroes excel at dealing damage and securing kills, whether by actively pushing objectives and making power moves against the enemy team, or to oppressively defend objectives and kill those straying near the holdout.^note Prior to June 2018, this was split into "Offense" and "Defense", but has since been consolidated into a single role.
  • Tank: These heroes are large, and that's the point. With lots of shields and armor, tanks soak up bullets for their team by being all up in their foe's crosshairs, and can also be capable of making disruptive engagements to set up for massive enemy team wipes. Tanks are often also more close-ranged than ranged-oriented.
  • Support: These heroes take on a number of supporting roles, most focusing on all-important healing to keep their team sustained in their constant battles. Some can contribute further with their unique buffs such as damage or speed boosts, while others can actively take part in assisting with damage and crowd control themselves.
• Androids Are People, Too: The story of Overwatch is set after the Omnic Crisis and the world is shown to be recovering from the war. Omnics are robots that came from the Omnium factories but there is prejudice between them and humanity, as humans blame the Omnics for the crisis. Kings Row shows this tense segregation in its entirety.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can earn loot boxes by leveling up. Those loot boxes can reward you with cosmetic items like icons, victory poses, skins, and more. Blizzard's reasoning for this, according to this youtube video from Game Director Jeff Kaplan, is to essentially weed out those who play to earn rewards and boosts rather than those who play to challenge themselves against people of similar skill levels.
• Animal Motifs: The Lindholms have connections to bears. Torbjorn's name means "Thor Bear" and his "Viking" skin has his claw resemble a bear; you can also make the claim that his white, fur cloak is in reference to a polar bear. Brigitte's "Shieldmaiden" skin also features a bear and a bear paw print.
• Animesque: The Doomfist origin video looks like a high-quality anime, in contrast to the CGI shorts being more Pixar-esque and the previous non-CGI shorts being stills.
• Anti-Armor: Torbjörn's reworked Molten Core deals increased damage-per-second to enemy heroes with Armor^note 190/s if Armored, 160/s if not; having your armor destroyed will reduce the DPS burn to its lower threshold.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • No matter how high a place you fall from, you will not sustain fall damage, although some maps have Bottomless Pits and edges that will kill you if you fall into them... even if your character can fly, and the 'pit' is grass 40 feet below.
  • All map objectives have a short grace window for triggering Overtime — if someone tries to capture the objective 3 seconds before the match timer reaches zero, Overtime will trigger no matter what. Control/KOTH maps have a slightly more generous window due to the design of the game mode featuring percentage-based progression instead of typical countdown timers, where Overtime kicks in once the game ticks to 99% rather than 100%^note This is likely due to how the game is programmed to handle percentage completion, considering 100% the de facto victory state, but pausing at 99.99% while rounding down to the nearest whole number. Given that capture rates are at fixed 1% every 1.2 seconds, touching the objective after 96.5% will trigger Overtime.
  • Some characters have built-in mechanics to avoid wasting their ultimates:
    • Ana can't use her ultimate unless there are valid targets within range (any ally within line of sight), so she doesn't waste her ultimate by accident.
    • Before Symmetra's rework, if the spawn rooms change while she has a Teleporter/Shield Generator active, it will disappear and she will get a boost to her ultimate charge proportional to the number of unused teleports remaining, or a complete charge for the Shield Generator so she can immediately rebuild it.
  • You will get warned by either your own character or a teammate in various critical situations, including if someone spots a sniper or a turret, if someone starts capturing the objective, if they are revived, and if you get attacked from behind.
  • If you get disconnected in a Competitive match, you can re-enter the match when you reconnect as long as it hasn't ended in the meantime.
  • Because the game is essentially non-stop team fighting, things can get extremely hectic. To properly alert players about Ultimates, the game plays a voice line for each hero globally so that everyone on both teams knows who's ulting. The game also accounts for Mirror Match situations, and has the enemy teams voice lines play in their native tongue to help with differentiation. If the character's main language is English, then the game plays a more distinct and aggressive-sounding voice line, such as Reaper shouting "Die, die, die" on the enemy team and "Clearing the area" on an allied team.
  • If someone leaves in a Competitive match but doesn't return (either due to doing it on purpose or disconnecting and failing to rejoin in time), remaining players of the affected team are allowed to leave one minute from the time the offending player left with a loss but no quit penalties to make up for the high chance that the team will probably take a protracted defeat otherwise anyway.
  • When you drop into the middle of a game (usually because somebody quit partway through), Overwatch may give you an XP "backfill bonus" to make up for lost opportunities for other awards and bonuses. In addition, if this game ends with your team losing (which is likely), this defeat won't be marked on your career record.
  • Characters announce when they are supporting allies, such as Mercy saying "I'm taking care of you!" during a healing stream and Symmetra announcing her Teleporter is set up, so players will know that they are being given support.
  • If an ally dies during PvE events (e.g. Uprising, Retribution, or Storm Rising, etc...), you have a few seconds to revive him or her. If you fail to do so, you fail the mission. Since one of the modes of this mission can be done with any hero, it may lead to situations where someone dies in a place other players can't reach. If that happens, the body is teleported to a more accessible location nearby, so you still have a chance to revive them.
    • Formerly, reviving was manual; but as of Retribution, all revives now only require a teammate to stand within proximity to a downed ally until the counter ticks back up to full. This is due to the default lineup for the Retribution event (Reyes, Cassidy, Moira, and Genji) not including any tanks, which means that actively reviving an ally would leave a player completely exposed with no possible cover.
  • In the first week of the Retribution event, the mission would only be complete if all four players had entered the dropship. This meant that if one player decided to, at the end, ignore the objective and continue racking up kills in waves of enemies designed to be eventually unwinnable, the other three players would be forced to wait or even die themselves if that player were to die in the middle of enemy lines. An update introduced in the second week allows the rescue plane to depart if at least one party member is in the plane and the rest of the party is dead, awarding everyone a victory.
  • As a deterrent for players constantly leaving in quickplay and requeuing for matches they like, the game will hit you with a -75% XP gain "leaver's penalty" if you have left too many in a row, usually 5 out of the last 20, and will stay like that until you've finished a certain number of games without quitting. Formerly, there was no way to tell if one is back in the "green"; however, a counter has been added under the playercard on the main menu to show how many matches left the player has to complete before their XP gains return to normal, and a giant warning label will appear on the lower left corner if you're close to receiving a penalty. It only applies to quickplay, however, as Competitive has its own penalty measures (see Anti-Rage Quitting below).
• Anti-Gravity:
  • Very few vehicles have wheels. Instead, they have some anti-gravity device in their place which keeps them afloat in midair. Lampshaded in Hollywood by the payload car's occupant:
    Hal-Fred Glitchbot: How long is this going to take? May as well have tires on this thing!
  • Hanzo's arrowheads are anti-grav, floating above the shaft.
• Anti-Rage Quitting:
  • If a player drops out of 5 or more of their last 20 matches, they will get 75% less EXP from subsequent games until they reduce that ratio.
  • In Competitive Mode, quitting out of a match early locks you out of playing Competitive Mode again for 10 minutes at minimum, and the penalties can increase with subsequent quits. Continuing to abort matches will result in you getting banned from the mode for the rest of the current season. The quit prompts have a big red warning message in ALL CAPS to warn you of these penalties.^note If you decide to quit at the end of the match, take care to do so only during the "VICTORY!" or "DEFEAT" animation or after it; quitting during the "MATCH COMPLETE" animation or the final score tally will count against you, even though no more meaningful actions can be taken during those two screens.^note The warnings only show if you exit via menus; if you choose to use alt-F4 (Windows "quit" keyboard shortcut) as the fast way out, you bypass all the menus and the warnings that go with them.
• Anti-Villain: A recurring theme is that evil does not exist ab initio. Rather, it is cultivated within people through their experiences and surroundings. Each of the villains therefore has a story behind how they became who they currently are, which leaves each of them — some, admittedly, more than others — with some measure of sympathy.
  • Symmetra is the straightest example. She is a fundamentally well-intentioned person who is motivated by a legitimate desire to make the world a better place, and she appears to be genuinely regretful for her actions in A Better World when they lead to worsening the situation. Unfortunately, thanks to the environment in which she was raised, her definition of "better" is inflexibly rigid, regimental, and unquestioning order in all things, and come hell or high water, she intends to have it.
  • Downplayed a bit more with Reaper and Widowmaker. Both are presented as tragic figures who were once good, relatable people, but fell victim to circumstance into becoming who they are now. But they're also presented as murderers who have gleefully ruined a lot of innocent people's lives, and the story makes no bones about how they do not have anyone's best interest at heart, they are not sorry for their crimes, and they each pose a threat that has to be dealt with as long as they're allowed to roam about unsupervised.
  • Zigzagged with Sombra. Of all the Talon agents, her intentions are the least heinous, being more of a thief than a murderer or warmonger, and she has the most relatable motivation for her actions: she's on the run from a vast global conspiracy, and she's using the resources Talon provides her to covertly investigate it. She's also, far and away, their most obnoxious member, she's implied to possibly not have the best interests of anyone but herself in mind, and she has no problem with being an accomplice to Talon's destructive ways even when it doesn't immediately service her ends.
  • Roadhog's homeland was sold out by his own government, and the hardships he endured in leading its ultimately futile defense, coupled with witnessing its degradation first-hand, led him to becoming a bitter, angry, hateful, and selfish man who believes the world has spurned him. Thus, he thinks the harm he chooses to inflict is just what the world deserves. This also fits partner-in-crime Junkrat, but not quite to the same degree. Both are presented as products of their environment, but Junkrat's grievances are not as explored in-depth, and his actions are portrayed more like the fevered shenanigans of an irresponsible madman out for his own amusement.
  • Even the coolly aloof Moira, who at first glance appears to be an aversion of the trope, has clear and realistic motivations. She doesn't have a tragic backstory, which arguably makes her the least sympathetic character in the game, but she isn't evil for the sake of being evil. She believes that her work will forward humanity, and ethics should not stand in the way of progress.
• Apocalypse Not: Junkertown was built from and over the remains of the destroyed Omnium that, according to lore, left much of the Australian interior an irradiated wasteland and made Roadhog and Junkrat the people they are. If you look at the landscape on the map, there are no signs of destruction, devastation, or explosions. The Outback never had much to look at in the first place, but it's certainly not a Fall Out-esque nuclear wasteland either.
• Apocalyptic Log: One in the form of visual Story Breadcrumbs in the Ecopoint: Antarctica map that you can't really tell is there unless you're really searching for it. There are several of Mei's notes and sketches littered around the map that, when pieced together chronologically, tell the tragic events of her backstory before she and her crew went into cryogenic stasis.
• April Fools' Day: The Overwatch team has played various gags on the playerbase for April Fools Day:
  • Between 2017 to 2019, typing in the text channel automatically caused all messages to become rendered as if they were said by Reinhardt, i.e. in all-caps with exclamation points and ending each sentence with one of his voice lines.
    Player: gg all
    Result: GG ALL!!!! PRECISION GERMAN ENGINEERING!!!
  • Starting in 2020, googly eyes were placed on virtually every active character in the game, from heroes, to B.O.B., to the training bots, to even Torbjörn's turrets and Hanzo and Genji's dragon effects.
  • 2021 had an interesting one in the form of a playable Experimental Card patch that introduced significant changes to all heroes, with half of them being incredibly bonkers mechanical overhauls that would flip the game upside-down if they were actually real (including giving Reaper, Sigma, and Zenyatta outright flight, returning Hanzo his Scatter Arrow back, and forcing Wrecking Ball to be permanently stuck in ball form). However, the other half were given much more grounded and practical changes, with Blizzard essentially taking the opportunity to have the public test out a few ideas with legitimate potential among several crazier ones to see what stuck. Indeed, some were properly implemented live, like giving D.Va's Call Mech a substantial damage buff to kill non-tanks, or Zarya two storable charges for her barriers.
  • 2023 saw the ultimate callouts of every hero getting replaced with far sillier replacements. Some choice cuts:
    D.Va (hostile): Peep this POTG!
    Doomfist (hostile): You can't get me~!
    Orisa (friendly): Check yourself or wreck yourself!
    Ramattra (hostile): Who wants a purple hug?! / Agony is grape-flavored!
    Wrecking Ball (hostile): Collect the little balls to win a prize.
    Ashe (hostile): Fred! I mean — B.O.B.! Do something!
    Cassidy (hostile): It's half past six... / It's two in the mornin'... / It's past your bedtime...
    Echo: (hostile): I'm better than you at: (hero name)
    Genji (hostile): Shing! Shing! Shing! Shing! Shing! Shing!
    Hanzo (hostile): Nomnomnomnomnomnomnom!
    Reaper (friendly): WheeEEeeeeEEEeeeeEEEeeee...
    Soldier: 76 (hostile): Who took my dentures?!
    Soldier: 76 (if Lúcio is present): Turn that damn music down!
    Sombra (hostile): Propaganda is useless!
    Baptiste (friendly): Shoot through the big glowy thing!
    Brigitte (friendly): Mace to the— mace to the— mace to the— mace to the face!
    Kiriko (friendly): Believe it!
    Lúcio (friendly): Who wants a billion hit points!?
    Moira (hostile): Kamehamehaaaa!
    Zenyatta (hostile): Deal with it.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Reaper is directly targeting past and present Overwatch operatives, so he runs into this often:
    • He and Soldier: 76 have more history and bad blood between each other than any other two characters. Even going back to their days as Overwatch agents, Gabriel Reyes always felt a degree of resentment for the lack of recognition he got as their head of wetwork compared to the charming and well-regarded Captain Morrison. It gradually built to a boiling point that culminated with Overwatch’s collapse, brought about in no small part by Reaper himself. This has intensified their bitterness and antagonism towards each other to the point where they are both effectively at the top of each other’s kill-on-sight list today.
    • In the animated shorts, Reaper has been foiled by Winston at least twice. When Reaper appears at Watchpoint: Gibraltar to acquire the Overwatch database, Winston recognizes him and drips animosity as he says his name. Winston manages to fight off Reaper and his goons in that exchange, but got teamed up on by Reaper and Widowmaker during the museum heist. Reaper temporarily bests Winston, but stops to step on Winston's glasses, which sends Winston into a primal rage. In-game, Reaper and Winston say nothing but hateful remarks to each other, with Reaper dismissively referring to him only as "Monkey" (and being one of Winston's counters) and Winston stating that even children wouldn't be scared of Reaper.
    • Tracer and Reaper don't get that many interactions, but she does get a nice line mocking his "Death comes" voice line if she kills him.
  • Widowmaker, being deeply involved in most of the story's conflicts, has quite a few:
    • Tracer and she are shaping up to be this for each other. They are the most visible hero/villain pair in the game, having multiple on-screen encounters (instead of confining it mostly to backstory), to the point where it’s even bled into the marketing for both this game^note The Mirrored Confrontation Shot on Blizzard’s subpage for the game has two teams facing down each other; Tracer and Widowmaker are both in the foreground rows of their respective teams and are by far the most prominently featured and Heroes of the Storm^note Nova gives Tracer a bit of a start in the latter’s introduction trailer by shifting into her Widowmaker skin without warning. For Tracer, the root of their conflict is very personal, as Widowmaker is responsible for a murder in Tracer’s hometown that destabilized the already tense situation between humans and omnics into all-out chaos, personally causing Tracer a substantial amount of grief and injury in the process. In turn, Tracer played a role in botching her and Reaper’s museum heist, which signaled the beginning of Overwatch’s return and makes her partially representative of the first real opposition that Talon has had to face in years. These two have been at each other’s throats since day one, and every single one of their interactions in-game is dripping with antagonism.
    • Ana and Widowmaker first crossed paths on a mission that ended in a disaster for Ana and her team in Overwatch, and caused Ana to lose her eye due to Widowmaker's Scope Snipe. Meeting each other again in-game results in a metric ton of Passive-Aggressive Kombat between the two women, with Widowmaker calling Ana a "shell of a woman" and Ana stating that Gerard was a fool for ever loving her. Widowmaker makes cutting remarks if she kills Ana's daughter Pharah in combat, and Ana throws Widowmaker's catchphrases back at her if she kills her.
  • As the man responsible for spearheading most of the main conflict, Doomfist has earned himself a few enemies who would rather not see him succeed.
    • He has terrorized Numbani on at least two occasions (once as shown in his origin story trailer, and again to retrieve his gauntlet), during which he made short work of the city's OR-15 security robots. Efi Oladele, a Numbani resident, built Orisa as a buffed-up version of those same machines in direct response to one of his attacks, which makes her a spiritual deterrent against him designed specifically to handle the kind of threat he poses.
    • Winston was the one responsible for landing him in prison after he made the mistake of hurting his friends during one of his aforementioned rampages, which likely did not engender any goodwill between either of them. Doomfist even has newspaper clippings covering the event hanging on the walls in his cell, suggesting he still hasn't gotten over it.
  • Lúcio and Symmetra to each other. Even with her own growing doubts on Vishkar, Symmetra simply can't accept Lúcio's rise to fame kickstarted by stealing from her company and accosted him as a street thief or admonishing his ideas of freedom as anarchy. On the other hand, Lúcio stands on the firm belief that the people should have freedom and Vishkar is only bogging them down with their so-called 'order', and thinks that Symmetra is nothing but an Unwitting Pawn to (or just the same as) the corrupt company that was blinded by its 'fake' slogans and mocks her for not realizing the truth about her company while continuing to harass or mock Vishkar while sharing the benefits of his 'theft' to the poor people that need it more.
• Armor Meter: Physical armor (which provides Damage Reduction for incoming fire^note specifically 5 hp for any hit that does more than 10 hp of damage, or half damage for a hit that deals less than 10 hp, meaning it can be easily overcome by single-hit burst damage like Junkrat or Pharah's projectiles, but works very well against rapid-fire damage like Tracer and Soldier 76's guns) is represented by yellow ticks on your health bar, while shield (which doesn't reduce damage, but can regenerate automatically after a few seconds of not taking damage) is represented as blue. Temporary armour and shields (which aren't healed, and sometimes drain away over time) which some abilities provide are represented by darker ticks.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "The Junkers", Junkrat's bio on the news states that he "specializes in explosives, arson, demolition, barbecue".
• The Artifact: The Summer Games event is this. In 2016, the Summer Olympics was in Rio de Janerio, which was why Blizzard added sports-themed costumes and victory poses with medals for the heroes, created Lúcioball, and had it take place in Lúcio‘s hometown. However, there were no Olympic games in 2017, and while the Olympics took place during the Winter in 2018, the World Cup took place in July, yet on both years, there were still general sports costumes and medal poses, though they did also add beach theme costumes on both years as well.
• Artificial Atmospheric Actions:
  • AI-controlled characters will say "gg" at the end of the round.
  • Friendly heroes will automatically thank you or otherwise acknowledge when they receive shields, armor, or other boosts, or when they're resurrected. They will also occasionally call out "good shot!" or similar when an ally makes a kill.
    Mercy: Heroes never die!
    Cassidy: Thought I was a goner.
• Artificial Brilliance: As noted under Artificial Stupidity, the AI bots are generally pretty poor, but play some heroes better than others. Zarya and Zenyatta in particular are quite strong, the former because the AI uses Zarya's barriers as well as any human can and the latter because the AI has perfect aim despite the travel time on Zenyatta's projectiles. Having two Zaryas on the AI team will make a bot game significantly more difficult.
• Artificial Gravity: Horizon Lunar Base is on the moon, but has Earth-like gravity — until you go out the airlock into the actual lunar environment, where the gravity is moon-normal (in other words, 6 times weaker, allowing for huge jumps). There must therefore be some device in the base that boosts the gravity to Earth-normal.
• Artificial Limbs: Cassidy, Symmetra and Torbjörn have cybernetic left arms while Junkrat has a metal peg leg prosthesis and a robotic right forearm and hand strapped to his elbow. As seen in the Uprising comic, most of Genji's body was replaced with cybernetic implants, following Overwatch's acquisition of him, with only his torso, left arm and head being left organic. Genji's current body is potentially even more cybernetic in nature. Doomfist's non-gauntlet arm is a prosthetic with built-in knuckle shotguns.
• Artificial Stupidity: The bots in the offline mode make for very poor practice. While they always make sure to group up, they lump themselves together in such a manner that it is ludicrously easy to rack up eliminations without having to worry about your safety, and they only ever march towards their objectives, only splitting up when they get there or if a player intervenes. Depending on whether or not the bots are attacking, they might pick a hero that's extremely unsuitable for the situation, such as an attacking Bastion when playing on an easily defensible map like Hanamura. Furthermore, you'll only ever see the AI play as Soldier: 76, Cassidy, Reaper, Bastion, Torbjörn, Roadhog, Zarya, Lúcio, Ana, Mei, Zenyatta, and Sombra. The AI isn't programmed to handle Pharah's and Genji's use of mobility, or Tracer's abilities. Hanzo and Widowmaker's sniping abilities are useless because of the above-mentioned pathing. Junkrat's positional defenses can't be utilized. Reinhardt and Brigitte can't use their shield in order to keep up the pace, Winston's gun isn't accurate and his shield is useless for bots on the move, and the AI can't play as D.Va because it's basically two different forms between her MEKA and herself. Mercy requires the player to hold down the fire button (as do Mei, Moira, and Symmetra) and rapidly change between players to keep them healed. Symmetra's entire concept is useless, again, because of the pathing. Orisa's anchor shield is useless for bots that constantly move, and the AI is unable to utilize the biotic orbs that Moira uses. Mei was eventually programmed into the AI, and she's very quick to use her Cryo-Freeze. That said, the remaining characters do use their abilities properly, and will use their ultimates when they see the right moment.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • The game takes liberties with maps based on specific real-life locations; for example, anyone who's been to Hollywood in real life can tell you that there's no major studios within a five-minute walk of Hollywood Boulevard, unlike its in-game counterpart. Of course, this is all in the name of fun and balanced maps (and because Blizzard were told to stop recreating real-life Hollywood by Hollywood themselves).
  • "Rise and Shine" takes place in Antarctica, yet we see the sun go down and rise again at least once. While possible at certain times of the year, the polar regions are well-known for having months worth of darkness or months of sunshine due to the way that the earth is angled.
• Artistic License – Physics: In Cassidy's Lifeguard skin, his hat shades the lower half of his face but leaves light around his eyes. Shadows don't work like that.
• Art-Shifted Sequel: The non-CGI shorts progressively changed overtime. First they were stills in beige color with minimal animation. Then they changed to being in full-color with more animation with Sombra and Orisa's origin videos. Then, it switched being straight-up animesque with Doomfist's origin video, being completely animated with no stills whatsoever. The Junkertown cinematic is done in CGI, but unlike the other cinematics, it's animated in a way that more resembles classic 2D animation. It was also rendered in-engine, instead of using the Pixar-esque style the other cinematics used. The "Rise and Shine" short confirmed that this change would not be permanent. And within the short itself, the title cards are presented with illustrated backgrounds and rotoscoped animations in flat colors like the opening to an early 1960s thriller.
• Ascended Meme:
  • One of D.Va's emotes, "Game On", has her playing a game on her mech's HUD while eating D.Vatos chips and drinking soda, a shout-out to the "Gremlin D.Va" meme.
  • The famous Cardboard Meka cosplay made popular by the fandom is now a spray tag.
  • When Cassidy announces that his Ultimate is ready, he may coyly say "You know what time it is", referencing the meme where either he asks someone what time it is or another hero asks him. A later addition has Mei ask him what time it is. His response?
    Cassidy: Well, I'd say it's about— nah, I see what you're doin' there.
  • Genji sometimes calls himself "Green Cyborg Ninja Dude", a nickname the fandom used before his name was ever given. His Halloween voice line has him declare "Cyborg Ninja" to be his costume.
  • Ana's Halloween emote is her giving out candy, a reference to a popular fan interpretation of her as a doting grandmother.
  • The Halloween sprays portray each of the cast of Overwatch as trick-or-treating kids, except for Soldier: 76, who is depicted as a grumpy old man in a rocking chair, a reference to the "Dad: 76" meme. ^note Ana is also not a child, but carries a young Fareeha on her shoulders.
  • Soldier: 76 has been referred to as "Dad: 76" by fans. First Blizzard teased it by picking golf for his Summer Games sport (a stereotypical "Dad" sport), he later got the below interaction with Tracer, and both dad jokes and Dad fashion (socks with sandals) from his Grillmaster: 76 skin (a stereotypical barbecue dad skin) in Summer Games 2017. The below bit with Tracer has her hint he's Team Dad:
  Soldier: 76: You need to slow down. Think about your actions.
  Tracer: Okay, dad.
  • During Sombra's ARG, there was a fan theory about a code hidden in the sky of Dorado. This theory was so misguided that it required intervention of the developers to put the players back on track. One of Sombra's emotes, called "Amused", consists of her looking at the code and laughing. The code itself is also one of her sprays.
  • Several references have been made to "Dad 76", but none so blatant as his Summer Games 2017 skin as a stereotypical barbecue dad with cargo shorts and socks with sandals.
  • As of the Uprising patch, Lúcio, when nanoboosted, has a small chance of shouting "Boostio!"
  • While killing an enemy with a damage orb, Moira has a chance to quip "Simple geometry," referencing one of Hanzo's more infamous lines. One of her achievements is also called "Simple Trigonometry."
• Asshole Victim: In the comic short "Going Legit", a Corrupt Corporate Executive hired Junkrat and Roadhog to rescue hostages from Omnic terrorists so they can take the fall for an insurance fraud scheme he was doing. Once Junkrat and Roadhog catch on to his intentions, they kill him by hanging the man outside with chains several hundred feet in the air and then blowing him (and his office building) to kingdom come.
  • Antonio Giordani, the Talon executive whose bombing of Blackwatch HQ kills many agents and kicks off the events of Retribution. His execution at the hands of Gabriel Reyes alerts Talon to the strike team's presence and signals Reyes' own descent into villainy, but the guy is such an absolute scumbag that, even though you know it will lead to nothing good, you still find yourself cheering when his smarmy ass gets blown out that window and rooting for Reyes and his team to get away with it, at least for the duration of the event.
• Asymmetric Multiplayer: The Winter Wonderland event-exclusive "Yeti Hunt", which pits 5 Hunters (represented by Mei) against a single boss Yeti (represented by Winston), similar to Evolve. The goal of the Hunters is to kill the high-health Yeti, while the Yeti has to kill 5 Hunters first, made easier by collecting meat across the map that can send him into Primal Rage and grant him huge bonus damage.
• A-Team Firing: Everyone in the cinematic trailer. Bullets are flying everywhere, but even the sniper barely hits anything except Winston.
• Ate His Gun: In the comic "Mission Statement", the Omnic team member Okoro kills himself instead of letting himself get taken control of by the Anubis AI and killing his teammates.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: "Destroyer" features Torbjörn going up against a Titan-class Omnic, a monstrous machine as tall as a skyscraper. Torbjörn himself originally designed it to help build high rises, but the project was repurposed for warfare during the Omnic Crisis.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: Dubstep plays over Soldier: 76's battle against street thugs in his short "Heroes".
  • Averted by letter, but played straight in spirit with "Reunion" letting Cassidy crush Ashe's team to an awesome western^note the movie genre, not the music genre theme.

B

• Badass Bystander: Brian, the older of the two kids in the cinematic trailer, helps out by wearing Doomfist's gauntlet that Reaper and Widowmaker are after and punching Widowmaker with it, throwing her a good way across the exhibit.
• Badass Crew: The original Overwatch strike team consisting of Jack, Reyes, Ana, Torbjörn, and Reinhardt definitely fit this trope. They were the ones that brought an end to the Omnic Crisis and established Overwatch as a worldwide organization.
• Badass Normal: Most characters don't technically have special powers, but effectively achieve superhero-esque abilities through technology. Cassidy, on the other hand, is just a completely normal guy who possesses a flashbang, a revolver, and really good aim (he does have an artificial left arm, but it doesn't seem to give him any special abilities), yet can fight with the best of them.
  • Hanzo also counts, fighting with no cybernetics, and just wielding a bow and arrow. He does use magic when performing his ultimate, but other than that, it's all raw skill.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Cassidy knows Echo's body is on a military train and needs to steal it, so how does he do it? Anonymously give a tip to Ashe about all the other goodies on the train, knowing she wouldn't be able to resist pulling off the heist.
• Bad Luck Mitigation Mechanic: The loot boxes that offer random cosmetic rewards are guaranteed to provide one Legendary item for every 13 boxes or so. Additionally, during holiday events a second box cycle is added on top of the first, guaranteeing an event-exclusive Legendary, meaning a player will likely get two Legendaries within 13 boxes during special events.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In general, at the end of the early era of Overwatch, Talon has overall won. They brainwashed Amélie Lacroix, who then assassinated their biggest opposition: her own husband. After that, Amélie became Widowmaker and gravely injured Ana Amari, leading Reinhardt to be forced into retirement, quickly allowing Overwatch to become corrupt. This led to the destruction of the Swiss Headquarters, the supposed deaths of Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes, and Overwatch being declared illegal and disbanded. In the present, Talon is a Nebulous Criminal Conspiracy capable of spreading their influence almost unopposed… until Winston reinstated Overwatch.
  • Talon has had more overall success in the present. In addition to the assassination in London, Doomfist's breakout completely negates Tracer and Winston's victory in the cinematic trailer, and also returns one of their leaders to a position where he can direct them to become an even greater threat. Masquerade also reveals through dialogue that Reaper was indeed successful in recovering information from the Gibraltar terminal in Recall, and that Talon has been able to work around the assassination's failure in Infiltration in order to turn the target into an asset. So, even when the bad guys fail to accomplish their objective, they still get what they want and manage to come out ahead. Meanwhile, Overwatch is still in ruins and its return has gained only a modicum of traction.
  • At the end of the Alive video, Widowmaker succeeds in assassinating her target. And at the end of the Legacy comics, Widowmaker put Ana out of business very quickly and ruined her mission.
  • Zig-Zagged in Infiltration. While the Talon members fail to kill the Volskaya president, Sombra accomplishes her goal of blackmailing the president into becoming her "friend".
  • Escorting the payload in King's Row. YOU are escorting and detonating an EMP to destroy a group of Omnic refugees. Good job, You Bastard!...
  • Similarly, if you succeed in Junkertown, YOU are escorting a bomb, disguised as an offering to the queen of Junkertown, in retribution for kicking out Junkrat and Roadhog for very good reasons.
• Bait-and-Switch: Reflections opens up with Winston in Watchpoint: Gibraltar talking with Athena about spending the holidays alone. Cut to Tracer frantically running around London on a last minute shopping spree. We follow her as she tries to find a gift for someone (and hitting some snags along the way), presumably her best friend. Then she gets back home. Surprise! She was actually trying to find something for her previously unseen girlfriend^note Don’t worry about Winston; the girls pay him a visit for dinner at the end.
• Banana Peel: In Recall, a Talon operative slips on a banana peel while trying to restrain Winston using the cable gun. This is a rare plot critical example of the trope, as opposed to being just for humor. It allowed Winston to break free and defeat the Talon operatives (including Reaper), preventing them from getting the locations of the former Overwatch agents. Then he reinstated Overwatch. Yes, the failure of Talon's mission and the revival of Overwatch can all be attributed to one Talon operative slipping on a banana peel.
• Barrier Warrior: All of the Tanks sans Roadhog are able to deploy energy shields, and with different uses.
  • D.Va's Defense Matrix will block (almost) anything that's fired at her, and is governed by a recharging strictly time-based meter rather than damage taken^note Defense Matrix can absorb literally infinite amounts of damage while it's active. However, the range and width are small, making it more effective when she's up close and personal with the enemy rather than back with her team.
  • Orisa's Protective Barrier throws out a stationary barrier that can protect her and her allies from enemy fire. It has 600 HP and can remain active for up to 20 seconds. This has been removed by Overwatch 2, as Orisa now has Javelin Spin, which absorbs bullets instead.
  • Reinhardt's Barrier Field is a large shield that has 1200 HP, can be kept up indefinitely (though Rein moves much slower and can't attack when it's up), and regenerates 144 HP per second when it's not up. This makes a good player extremely valuable to the team, as he can directly protect other players while they make a push.
    • Brigitte (a Support hero) has a scaled-down Barrier Shield, which only has 200 HP and covers much less physical space and doesn't slow her down as much, but otherwise functions identically, along with an added Shield Bash attack.
  • Winston's Barrier Projector is a large stationary bubble that has 650 HP and a 8-second duration. He can drop it over his team to prevent the enemy from shooting in, or jump into the middle of the enemy and drop it over them to prevent them from shooting out.
  • Wrecking Ball's Adaptive Shield can create an extra 100 shields for him and adds more shields for each enemy that's near him for a total amount of 600 shields for a group of 5 opponents. This makes it very useful in case he's surrounded by the enemy and gives him extra time to either escape or buy some time to hold off the enemy at a point until the rest of the team shows up.
  • Zarya's Particle Barrier and Projected Barrier. The former shields herself for two seconds, and the latter shields a teammate for two seconds, and both have 200 HP. That might not sound like much, but with proper timing, it can completely negate an enemy Ultimate or save the life of a recklessly charging ally. Additionally, shots absorbed by the shields power up her weapon, and if it gets to 100, she becomes a formidable damage dealer.
  • Sigma takes this to an extreme, being the only tank with two ways to block damage for his team; the Experimental Barrier, which has 700HP and can be rapidly deployed and undeployed at various angles, and the Kinetic Grasp, which acts as a reverse of Genji's reflect — instead of turning damage back at the enemy, it turns damage into temporary shield health for Sigma.
  • A non-tank example is Symmetra after her rework, where she can send out a floating, slow-moving Photon Barrier that provides unidirectional mobile cover for allies. When she received another rework, this ability became an infinitely-spanning wall as her new ultimate.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Heroes can apparently breathe perfectly fine on the surface sections of the Horizon Lunar Base with no explanation as to how. It's made even more glaring with the subversion of Space Is Noisy, implying that they are indeed within the vacuum of space with no equipment different to what they normally have.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Played for Laughs in the Trace & Bake ad commemorating the game's second anniversary. Tracer (or, rather, her living statuette) bakes a cake in honor of the occasion, but doesn't have any matches for the candles. Her solution? Slowly scoot it across the table and deliberately knock it against the base of Reaper's statuette. One hail of gunfire and a lot of dodging later, and the candles are all lit.
  • Played straight in "Reunion" when Cassidy all but admits he's the one who secretly tipped off Ashe about the military train carrying Echo's body, knowing she wouldn't be able to resist pulling off a robbery and thus her gang would be the ones responsible for attacking the train so he wouldn't have to.
• Battle in the Rain: One of the three maps for Lijiang Tower, Night Market, takes place outside in the rain, though it's only visible on higher graphical settings.
• Beach Episode: Summer Games 2017 gives Cassidy, Widowmaker, Sombra, and Soldier:76 beach-themed skins and has a beach as one of the main menu backgrounds.
• Becoming the Costume: Some of the alternate skins will give new/change their heroes' voice lines in order to make them fit with their new theme. Individual examples can be found on each character's character page.
• Being Evil Sucks: While Reaper and Widowmaker are normally portrayed as Card Carrying Villains who find the act of evil exhilarating, the Reflections comic shows the clear downside of it. Both are lonely and depressed on Christmas, the season for being together with loved ones, of which they have none. Reaper watches a family happily going about their day on Christmas, looking clearly saddened through his static mask.^note  Worse, Michael Chu confirmed on a Reddit AMA that this is "not a random family". Meanwhile, Widowmaker mourns her deceased husband in the snow, having been personally responsible for killing him. This sheds light on the theme that the villains of Overwatch are ultimately broken individuals who have been victims of the world they live in.
• Being Good Sucks: The good guys don't have it much better. Most, if not all, of them are genuinely good, helpful, likable people whose efforts and sacrifices to uphold their ideal for a more prosperous world have earned them hardship, misery and ingratitude. Good or bad, everyone in the world of Overwatch is a victim to at least some degree.
  • Mercy has selflessly dedicated her life to peace and medicine after witnessing the horrors of war firsthand, and her reward is to be shuttled from one belligerent, unresponsive environment to another until she's reduced to sojourning through the plague-ridden Middle East by her lonesome in order to accomplish anything.
  • Winston has steadfastly, solitarily, and thanklessly stood by Overwatch's side even after its collapse, when upholding its duties could label him as a criminal.
  • Genji has put forward the effort to forgive and reach out to his brother even after the latter nearly killed him, and he's met with hostility and an arrow pointed in his face for his trouble.
  • Jack Morrison has seen his entire life's work in building an international peacekeeping force go up in flames as he himself is reduced to a bitter, wanted vigilante. It was revealed that he had a boyfriend/fiance, who has moved on and found a happy life without him (one he couldn't provide).
  • Reinhardt perseveres through his emotional scars to uphold justice wherever he goes with almost no support.
  • Mei basically took a nap and woke up to discover her friends had perished and several years of her life's work fighting climate change in ruins.
  • Fate seems determined to repay Tracer for years of tirelessly fighting for the common good and prioritizing the needs of others above herself by undoing her accomplishments, sometimes right before her eyes, and making life itself harder for her.
• Berserk Button: A few characters have these.
  • Winston's is people stepping on his glasses, which are a Tragic Keepsake from his deceased human Parental Substitute Dr. Harold Winston. In the cinematic trailer, we see the results of pushing that button. Sort of literal during gameplay, as the icon for Winston's Ultimate (which, as in the trailer, makes him go berserk) is a pair of broken glasses.
  • In "Recall", we have another one for Winston: calling him a "monkey".
    Winston: I am not a monkey. I am a SCIENTIST!
    (cue Reaper being blown across the room and disintegrated by Tesla)
  • As revealed in the webcomic "Going Legit", Junkrat's is people calling his partner-in-crime Roadhog "fat". Though he has no problem doing it himself.
  • In "Dragons", the cool-headed Hanzo has an increase in rage whenever he hears anyone mentioning Genji, as he sees it as an act of mockery to his brother's memory.
  • Widowmaker, for someone who usually acts calm (apart from when she's killing), has enough humanity left in her to react very strongly when someone badmouths or even mentions Gerard, her deceased husband that she was brainwashed into killing.
• Better to Die than Be Killed:
  • In high-level play, a common tactic when cut off from the rest of your team or being the only survivor of a lost team-fight is to commit suicide either by jumping off the map or blowing yourself up with your weapon. Not only does this prevent the enemy from killing you and charging their ultimates quicker, but it can help you regroup with your team when it otherwise wouldn't be possible.
  • In a Deathmatch, sometimes you are better off committing suicide, because you can deny your opponents a point; however, if you do this enough times, then you will lose a point.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The candidates for Big Bad seem to grow over time, to the point where we can expect a shuffle later. To wit:
  • There's Talon, who was at least partially responsible for Overwatch's original downfall by creating Widowmaker out of Amélie Lacroix and "killing" Ana, and kickstarted the plot by attempting to kill all of them off. Reaper, formerly known as Overwatch founder Gabriel Reyes, who was essential to Overwatch's dissolution, was revealed to be a member of Talon's Council of Leaders, alongside Doomfist, who had been The Ghost beforehand and a major force in leading the organization, and then Moira, who gave Reaper his powers and Blackwatch and Talon scientific research and weapons. They all have their own agendas, and don't always agree, but they work together to achieve a common goal.
  • The Vishkar Corporation, who entered the fray and established their presence by taking over Rio de Janeiro. Then it's revealed that Vishkar might be in an alliance with Talon, with Vishkar member Sanjay Korpal being on Talon's inner council.
  • Also, Sombra's reveal also gave way to The Conspiracy, which has some involvement in everything, but whatever motive they have isn't yet clear.
  • Then there's the God Programs, who had been responsible for the Omnic Crisis, and are still alive (but currently quarantined).
  • Overall: Talon (lead by Reaper, Doomfist, Moira, and others), Vishkar (who may have a connection to Talon), The Conspiracy, and the God Programs. This isn't getting into all the other antagonistic factions and forces in the setting, either^note the most prominent of which is Null Sector, an Omnic terrorist organization that desires to Kill All Humans; however, they appear to be an Unwitting Pawn to Talon.
• The Big Guy: Tanks naturally fit this trope. Almost all of them are very large in size, towering over the rest of the cast, with Winston, Reinhardt, Roadhog, and Orisa being over seven feet tall, and Zarya is considerably shorter at only ("only") 6'5". Two exceptions to this are D.Va, who is quite petite as one would expect from a South Korean girl, and Wrecking Ball, who is a hamster, but they both compensate with their mech suits.
• Big "NO!": The girl with the Omnic companion does this when Tekhartha Mondatta is killed in the Alive short.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • It's not uncommon for a Hero whose first language isn't English to drop a few voicelines in their native tongue (ex. Sombra with Latin-American Spanish, Genji with Japanese, etc.). However, this only applies when the voice actor knows at least a little bit of the language, though after a patch, Lúcio does speak some Brazilian Portuguese despite his actor not being fluent in the language.
  • The calligraphy in Hanamura (the one which Hanzo kneels in front of in the Dragons short) spells out a Chinese/Japanese proverb, which literally translates into "(A) dragon's head, (and a) snake's tail", and means "to start with a bang, but end with a whimper". Presumably, it was hung there to remind the Shimada clan to never commit that mistake.
• Bittersweet Ending: Most of the comics and shorts.
  • Dragons: Hanzo and Genji are reunited, and Genji forgives his brother, but their future is uncertain, as Hanzo, who had forsaken his criminal heritage and spent the past many years of his life trying to atone for what he thought was killing his brother, is left feeling very conflicted about the recent turn of events.
  • Hero: Soldier: 76 saves Alejandra and proves, at least to her, that he’s still a hero. But most of the Los Muertos gang members get away, and while Alejandra may think Jack is hero, he himself does not.
  • The Last Bastion: Ganymede helps Bastion overcome its programming, and it returns peacefully to the forest, but it’s still racked with issues from the war and likely won’t be able to coexist with people for a long time, if ever.
  • Train Hopper: Cassidy lets the Talon agents have the strange device they came for, but in the process manages to save everyone on the train.
  • Infiltration: Definitely more "bitter" than "sweet," though. The mission is technically a failure from Talon’s perspective, but Sombra still manages to pull the wool over her allies' eyes and walks away with everything she wanted. Volskaya has effectively been blackmailed/threatened into being Sombra's personal benefactor, but she is still alive, even if her position on the moral scale is somewhat ambiguous, and she's got a job for Zarya.
  • Reflections: Definitely more "sweet" than "bitter,” though. Tracer nearly returns home empty-handed until a family she had helped earlier offers her a gift of their own as thanks. When she returns to her flat, her girlfriend Emily impulsively opens it, revealing it to be the same kind of scarf Tracer let someone else have earlier. They share a tender little moment and then show up at Watchpoint: Gibraltar to save Winston from spending Christmas alone. The penultimate spread is a collage showcasing how all the various heroes and villains are spending their holidays. Some are happy, such as Genji writing a letter to Mercy and Reinhardt celebrating with Torbjörn's family. Others, such as Widowmaker paying a visit to her husband's grave and Reaper forlornly observing a happy family, are not. Still, back on Gibraltar, the trio are enjoying dinner and each other's company, and Winston comments that he has a good feeling about next year.
  • Uprising: Tracer gets through to Commander Morrison and helps convince him to authorize a strike to assist with the crisis in London. The team ships out, and judging by the conditions in chronologically later materials, they resolve the situation and retrieve the hostages; Tracer successfully gets to save her home on her first mission, proves her credentials, and her career as a field agent begins in earnest. Under normal circumstances, this would be a straightforward happy ending. Unfortunately, this is a prequel that takes place before Alive, which means any success the heroes achieve in this scenario is doomed to be short-lived.
  • Rise and Shine: Mei restores the relay, becomes aware of Winston's recall of Overwatch, and successfully escapes the station, with a happily recovered Snowball in tow. However, she has a very long trek ahead of her to civilization through the frigid Antarctic, her colleagues have perished, and the whole world has taken a drastic turn for the worse while she slept, as the global warming situation has intensified and Overwatch's absence has given rise to many challenges to overcome should she manage to regroup and help rebuild it.
  • Searching: Sombra once again gets away, and she manages to shake Zarya's faith in Chairman Volskaya by at least some measure; Zarya resolves to return to the fight in Russia, but is otherwise unsure of what the future holds for her. But her experience with Lynx Seventeen has begun to soften her hostility toward omnics, and Sombra has at least been given a scare that someone knows her name and now has to deal with the possibility that her identity may be compromised.
  • Honor and Glory: Reinhardt decides to answer the recall, but is clearly still dealing with his Survivor Guilt from the defense of Eichenwalde. In the context of the flashback, he survives the events of the day, but has to live with knowing his commander Balderich von Alder perished, which he chooses to honor by joining Overwatch in his stead. Also, given that Eichenwalde remains in ruins and Balderich's body is still on the throne even thirty years later, it's possible that the defense failed anyway, or at least that the city was just left to rot with no effort at recovery or rebuilding.
• Bland-Name Product: D.Va's "Game On" Emote has her munching on some "D.Vatos", a play on the Doritos brand of chips that are commonly associated with the gamer stereotype.
  • Judging from her unique Summer Games skins, Tracer has a preference for "Speed Unlimited" brand sportswear, which could stand in for any major retail sporting goods brand.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • Regardless of whatever grievous injuries heroes can sustain in combat (whether it be impalement, taking a direct hit from an explosive, getting shot in the head with an arrow, taking a gun that fires scrap at point blank range, or getting slashed with a sword) they never bleed, get dismembered, or show any signs of injury.
  • This is an Enforced Trope for "Honor and Glory". The animators were not allowed to show blood, and instead there is a seeping black fog emitting from Balderich's wound.
• Blood-Stained Letter: The Hanamura map has in its shrine a a wall scroll with a sword slice in one corner with specks of blood around it, left over from the brothers' confrontation.
• Body Armor as Hit Points: More specifically, armor itself is considered a type of hit point that mitigates up to 5 damage with every incoming projectile, making it effective for facing automatic rifle weapons and even shotgun blasts, but not as much while facing explosive single bursts of damage. Most armored heroes naturally spawn with armor as part of their health bar, and Brigitte is able to grant armor to other teammates.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • Healer heroes are often this, due to sacrificing damage-dealing and Plays of the Game in order to keep the team in top shape without them having to scramble for health packs.
  • Soldier: 76 is meant to be this. He has neither spectacular DPS, reliable burst damage, nor gimmicks to demolish the other team, and as a Damage hero, he is understandably squishy. However, he is very beginner-friendly and versatile, sporting agreeable accuracy boosted by Tactical Visor to help snipe down annoying targets like Pharah and Tracer, a reasonably effective heal to serve as a ghetto Healer, and a sprint to help him quickly get in and out of combat. Not for nothing that he's the one you play as in the Tutorials, and Blizzard had to hit him with the Nerf bat several times so as to make him not too practical that he could steamroll other DPS heroes.
• Both Order and Chaos are Dangerous: The two antagonist factions in Overwatch — Vishkar Corporation and Talon — represent Order and Chaos, respectively. The former is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to Take Over the World so they can enforce an iron-fisted dictatorship in the name of peace, while the latter is bent on causing as much destruction as possible to push humanity's evolution and strength through conflict.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Both Overwatch and the United Nations are right in some ways. Overwatch was formed to fight what no one else could, and later made a better world with peacekeeping, science, and exploration. However, it's also very militaristic in nature, which created tension. Later, the covert "Blackwatch" unit and all of its dirtiest secrets were revealed to the public, demonstrating how corrupt it had become. The United Nations decided to revoke their charter and shut them down, and not without good reason. However, the world clearly still needs an organization of heroes like Overwatch, as there are many problems that the UN, nor individual nations, can't solve.
• Bottomless Magazines: D.Va and Moira can fire nonstop without reloading. Reinhardt and Brigitte only have melee weapons, so they do not need to reload either. While everyone else has an unlimited supply of ammo, they still have a limited clip size.
• Bottomless Pits: A frequent feature that almost every map has. Some are pits only on the borders of the map that you'd have to want it to fall in it. Other maps have pits that prove to be a hazard that you can fall or be knocked back into unintentionally, such as Ilios or King's Row. Pushing enemies into pits on purpose is a legitimate (and rather annoying) tactic that heroes with knockback (D.Va, Pharah, Junkrat, Lúcio, Brigitte) or drags (Roadhog, Orisa) can employ for easy kills. Subverted with Lúcio, thanks to his wall-riding ability, if you're skilled enough. Very high-skilled players can use the one in Ilios as a method of avoiding enemies. Hollywood and Temple of Anubis avert this trope.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Comes in two varieties.
  • Golden weapons are proof that a player has won in Competitive mode enough to show off their skills. Each win earns 10 SP, and 3,000 are needed to buy a golden weapon. Where the player ranks at the end of the season results in a bonus of SP as well, so eventually most players will obtain at least one.
  • The top 500 players of each Competitive season earn an animated version of the standard Season icon to show how strong they really are.
  • As noted under Absurdly High Level Cap, just owning the five-gold star, platinum portrait border means you've achieved practically the highest level possible in the game, at an astounding 2391. And this being a game where even five-star gold borders are an uncommon sight among streamers and year-long veterans.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In a pre-game interaction between Junkrat and Mercy:

  Junkrat: Doc, I've got this rash that won't go away. I've tried everything: radiation, dirt, radioactive dirt.

• Breather Episode: Compared with the other story materials released thus far, the holiday comics unfold at a much more leisurely pace, following the heroes just going about their seasonal business and involving little in the way of angst, drama or danger.
  • Junkenstein basically amounts to Reinhardt telling his friends a ghost story at a Halloween party. Any drama or danger present is all part of the tale, and it ends with shenanigans as Gabriel (before he became Reaper) makes a bombastic entrance in his costume. Everyone laughs, and all is well.
  • Reflections follows Tracer on a last-minute shopping spree through London at Christmastime as she tries to find the right gift for her girlfriend Emily, but keeps getting sidetracked by people in need around her. Once she arrives back at home, she and Emily share a sweet little moment of privacy and then pay a visit to Winston on Gibraltar to ensure he isn't alone for Christmas. A two-page spread collage shows the various heroes and villains peacefully (if not necessarily ''happily'' for a few) undergoing the holidays in their own ways and it all ends with Tracer, Winston and Emily enjoying dinner and being hopeful for the new year. Considering that London is usually embroiled in crisis when we check in, the difference in tone is striking.
  • Released between Doomfist's harrowing return and the very emotional Rise and Shine, Junkertown - The Plan is a straightforward screwball comedy comparatively shorter than the other shorts and animated using the in-game engine that plays out like a cartoon about Junkrat and Roadhog's titular plan to get revenge on the Junkers for kicking them out, carried entirely by Junkrat's bombastic rambling while Roadhog attempts to rein him in from screwing it up, which, naturally, he does.
• Breakout Character: Not exactly a character, per se, but the Pachimari was originally just a background element for the Hanamura map, but was given increasing presence in the game and even story-related content due to its popularity with fans.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: When Overwatch 2 first launched, with the game's shift to a free-to-play model, new heroes were released seasonally and had to be earned rather than being universally available on release, with the only options for any given season being either a substantial grind through their respective battle pass, waiting an entire three-month season for the hero's respective release to pass, or directly purchasing the premium pass and getting them immediately. This was eventually done away with starting season 10, with Blizzard announcing that all new heroes henceforth would return to being immediately free to play on release once again.

C

• Cain and Abel: The Shimada brothers Hanzo and Genji. When their father died, the dutiful heir Hanzo was forced by the elders to discipline his less responsible brother Genji and have him take a more active part in the clan's criminal activities. After Genji refused, tensions rose between the two until they clashed in a violent confrontation, in which Hanzo thought he'd killed his brother, causing him to leave the clan in shame. While Genji has since forgiven Hanzo after his return as a cyborg ninja, Hanzo is still very conflicted about his brother and what he is now, and the tension between the two is still evident in the game.
• Calling Your Attacks: Each character calls out their ultimate attack, which, in some cases, can help you avoid them or even negate them with the right ability. Each player will hear a different version of the callout depending on whether the ultimate was cast by a friendly or hostile player to help them react accordingly. Some characters even give a voice line after using standard abilities.
• The Cavalry: Planes bomb the Omnics shooting at Reinhardt and two soldiers he's huddling over in the Honor and Glory short, saving them while they were desperately standing still and the rest of their ground allies fled.
• The Cameo: The Player Icons contain characters from other Blizzard franchises, most of them already appearing in Heroes of the Storm. These include: Diablo, Sonya, Valla, Li-Ming, Raynor, Kerrigan, Artanis, Arthas (Lich King), Jaina (white haired), Sylvanas, Varian and Garrosh.
• Camera Abuse: One of Soldier: 76's highlight intros show him sprinting towards the camera and straight-up knocking the camera out with the butt of his rifle just because it was in the way. One of Roadhog's intros has him use his hook to pull the camera in, and Doomfist can end one of his intros by punching the camera away from him with a grin; both of the latter two physically damage the camera.
• Cast Herd: Many characters can be put in distinct groups with others, who share their beliefs, methodology, and even fit the same overall playstyle, although there's also overlap (e.g. Reaper, Widowmaker, and Sombra all work for Talon, but Sombra can also be grouped up with Zarya, because she's blackmailing her boss, and Soldier: 76 because of his vigilante activities in her home-town). The playable characters are also all classified into Damage^note which was itself initially split into Offense and Defense, Tanks, and Support, which are similar in game mechanics rather than characterization, but still allow the fans to divide the large ensemble cast into smaller, easier-to-remember groups when discussing everyone at once.
  • Winston and Tracer are relatively young and idealistic ex-Overwatch members who have white weaponry and armor, with a visibly high-tech, angular design, are idealists attempting to re-start Overwatch, and play flanking roles based on rapid movement.
  • Soldier: 76 and Ana are old Overwatch veterans, Still Wearing the Old Colors, but more "Urbanized", seeking to find out whatever conspiracy brought the organization down. Their playstyles revolve around healing themselves and others while fighting in a cohesive group.
  • Members of Talon, like Doomfist, Moira, Reaper, Sombra, and Widowmaker, are dresssed in dark hues, have various levels of physical modification done on them, and other Obviously Evil features such as spikes and claws. Their movesets are mobile, and all have some level of assassin-esque gameplay with hard-to-follow mobility and escape options, with most of them also having high burst damage of some sort.
  • Junkers, like Junkrat and Roadhog (and (to a certain extent) Wrecking Ball), hail from the mess that was once the Australian outback, with a yellow-and-black Scavenged Punk design, using powerful, but imprecise brute-force weaponry and rather self-centered, offensive short-ranged kits.
  • Lúcio and D.Va are celebrities who fight using their chosen art form (music and gaming) as weapons. They're also two of the more cheerful characters and remain stalwart fans of each other. Both are highly mobile and in-your-face with disruptive knockback and abilities that obstruct enemy attacks in general.
  • Symmetra and Zarya are duped loyalist followers of relatively regional sinister organizations (respectively Vishkar and Volskaya) that use their naïve idealism to manipulate them into carrying out their dirty work. They're armed with beam-based energy weapons that get more powerful by charging up in some fashion, explosive energy blasts, and have half their health as shields.
  • Reinhardt and his squire, Brigitte, are defensive Close Range Combatants with purely melee weaponry in knightly Powered Armor. They defend themselves and their teammates with powerful barrier shields while dashing into the fray to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
  • The Overwatch World Cup 2018 introduced four sprays that grouped together heroes by where they are in the game's extremely slowly developing story. One put Winston, Emily, Mei, and Tracer together ^note Mei was last seen watching Winston's recall, and Tracer and Emily spent Christmas dinner with Winston, so it can be assumed that they frequently spend time together, another had Reinhardt, Bastion, Brigitte, and Torbjorn ^note Reinhardt and Brigitte were last seen accepting the recall, Torbjorn rescued a Bastion unit (implied to be E54) in his most recent appearance, and the two pairs easily could have met up, and another had Zarya, Sombra, Cassidy, and Hanzo ^note Sombra and Zarya met in the comic "Searching", and it's implied that Cassidy and Sombra have worked together in the past. Who knows what Hanzo was doing there.
• Cast of Snowflakes: Each hero has a distinctive design, distinguishable even in silhouette. This keeps the characters easily distinguishable even if you're not familiar with the skin they're using, or when viewing their outline through a wall with an ability. The only real notable exceptions of skins that deviate from the silhouettes are three of Reaper's skins: Mariachi and El Blanco (they give him a massive Mexican hat and guitar on his back), and Blackwatch Reyes (which removes his trenchcoat).
• Catching the Speedster: Doomfist's cinematic has him up against Tracer, Genji, and Winston; when the former starts zipping around him, he opts to wait, observe her movements, then suddenly grab at her, ripping the chronal accelerator off her back to incapacitate her.
• Catchphrase: Tracer's is apparently "Cheers, luv! Cavalry's here!", and each character's Ultimate Skill call-out could also count as one. Also played with on Reinhardt; one of his unlockable voice lines is literally yelling "Catch Phrase!". Other characters will mock or play with others' catch phrases, which can lead to the 'owner' of the catch phrase calling them out on it. For example, Junkrat may call out 'Cheers, mate, cavalry's here!', leading to Tracer indignantly hollering at him that that's her line.
• Card-Carrying Villain: The organization Talon makes no secret that they're terrorists and they want the world to either burn or get plunged into chaos. But hey, at least they're honest about it, compared to some like Vishkar Corporation, who masks their nefarious goals with benevolent ideology.
• Casual Danger Dialogue:
  • In the cinematic trailer, Winston asks the two brothers touring the museum if they're enjoying the exhibit — even while he's getting shot at.
  • Some ultimate callouts can be this, especially the 'for allies' versions such as Reaper; "Clearing the area" rather understates the fact that he's unleashing an ultimate that can very well lead to an enemy team wipe.
• Celebrity Paradox: According to lore and the map Blizzard World, Blizzard Entertainment themselves exist in-universe, as do most of their current games, though not Overwatch itself. When asked about this, the developers explained that this counterpart of theirs does not produce Overwatch.
• Central Theme:
  • Maintaining hope, even when times seem at their darkest, and the power of individuals to make a difference, whether for good or ill.
  • Lunar New Year has a different theme every year, in which legendary skins are named after and represent various characters from Chinese mythology and folklore.
    • 2017 was Journey to the West
    • 2018 was the Four Gods.
    • 2019 was Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
• Character Roster Global Warming:
  • Non-tanks tend to be added more often than Tanks. Of the 8 post-release characters added so far, only two Tanks have been added, and of those two, Wrecking Ball doesn't fit the same "slow but able to defend the team" niche that many of the others do. Justified with Support characters as they were initially the smallest class and one got moved to another class so they can catch up to Tank.
  • Overwatch 2 commits more to this trajectory in changing games to 5v5, enforcing only one Tank per team in the intended "role queue" play. Blizzard's reasoning for the change has to do with how Tanks inherently tend to be "noisy" in a fast-paced shooter (by design, they're supposed to slow things down), so the choice was made to simplify things and (re)design the Tanks to function in a new context that focuses more on independent power while consolidating "main-tank" and "off-tank" into one generalist anchor that soaks up damage and attention for the team while also being able to brawl on their own. Combined with reworks to certain damage heroes like Sombra and Mei to reduce their hard crowd control, as well as to certain Tanks like Orisa by making them more combat-oriented and aggressive, 2's overall trajectory skews less towards heavily defined, Boring, but Practical utility that would slow games down, instead focusing on more "brawler"-type heroes with more consistent "neutral game", frontliners who are still defined by the skill-based shooter gameplay the rest of the game is built on. Further reflecting Blizzard's aversion to end up in a Padded Sumo Gameplay situation is the fact that Tanks in the Open Queue (allowing more than one per team) have distinctly slashed health pools when compared to when they're played alone in Role Queue.
• Chekhov's Gun: Junkrat and Roadhog steal various items in the "A Moment in Crime Special Report: 'The Junkers'" video. Those items end up being the cargo on the payload for the map Junkertown, as part of a heist to get revenge.
• Classic Villain: In the proud tradition of the game’s inspirations, the villains fit many of the criteria, being overtly visually and methodically distinct from the heroes, achieving their goals early on, often acting as foils for their good counterparts, and embodying at least one sin:
  • Reaper: Envy and Wrath. Gabriel Reyes' resentment and frustration over the lack of recognition for his work embittered him to the point of outright hostility with his comrades, leading to a confrontation that left him in grievous condition for him to become what he is today. Now, as Reaper, he takes an inordinate amount of pleasure in violence, and his campaign of extermination against former Overwatch agents seems to be motivated at least in part by a desire to vent his frustrations against those whom he considers to have neglected him^note If he’s put into play on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, he may comment "Overwatch… I’ll put an end to your sad story." with a delivery that is seething with subdued rage and bitterness. For comparison, his former comrade and current foil Jack Morrison/Soldier: 76 was also presumed dead in the same incident, also wears a mask, and is also motivated by a desire for retribution, but where Reaper presents himself as an otherworldy wraith, dons a dark attire, and pursues personal vengeance, Morrison presents himself as just a man, wears a bright red and blue jacket, and pursues justice for his fallen organization.
  • Widowmaker: Lust and Pride. Not even just for her appearance, but rather for the way she luxuriates in her actions and treats killing like an indulgence, one for which she’s always eager for more. She is one of Talon’s most effective agents, and she seems to be aware of this given her mannerisms, which convey a condescending disdain and tendency to belittle those around her. She's particularly fond of mocking those she's triumphed over in the past, indicating that she likes to bask in her accomplishments and feel in control, especially at the expense of those she has hurt. To compare with her primary nemeses, she's a coldblooded assassin equipped with a dark, form-fitting wardrobe to contrast the vibrant Tracer's warmhearted hero and the practical Ana's family-minded protector. She is the direct cause for a substantial amount of grief in both their lives, being responsible for a murder that sparked mass unrest in Tracer's hometown and the shot that forced Ana into hiding and ruined her life, rendering the conflict both heroes have with her much more than professional.
  • Sombra: Sloth and Greed. She's a thief, a liar and a manipulator who seems to like nothing less than a fair fight. Her array of skills, which includes invisibility, long-rage teleportation, "hacking" which acts as a nullifier for the skills of others and — in gameplay — the ability to track down critically-injured opponents, all mark her as an opportunist whose entire style of fighting revolves around using every dirty trick at her disposal to get what she wants with as little effort and risk to herself as possible. She's motivated largely by her own self-interest, having proven that she’s fully prepared to withhold or fabricate information to even her own allies if the result would be a net gain for herself and herself alone. As a deceiver, she has shown herself to be a liar and a manipulator who engages in blackmail and threats against those who have something she wants in order to leverage them into benefitting her. The closest she has to a nemesis is Zarya, who strikes an immediate contrast by being a muscular, straightforward frontline fighter who is explicitly motivated by a desire to protect others and her homeland.
  • Doomfist: Pride and Wrath. Having cultivated himself through violence, Akande Ogundimu views war and conflict as the world's ideal state in order to allow the strong to thrive and the weak to be culled. As one of Talon's inner circle, he is one of the most powerful and influential characters seen thus far, and his considerable resources leave him with all the means necessary to make his ideal a reality with restrained, precise fury. He has made little effort in dispatching whatever opposition has come his way, and his return marks an indicator that Talon's influence on the global scene is likely to soon become far worse, which his demeanor would indicate he knows very well. Aesthetically, his eclectic mix of machine elements and warrior’s markings is unlike anything else exhibited in the cast, distinguishing him from both his dark, Talon compatriots and the bright, more orderly heroes. His brutal, Social Darwinist philosophy contrasts sharply with the ideals of both Winston, a literal animal who has dedicated his life to the prosperity of mankind through science and peace, and Efi and Orisa, who have dedicated the use of their talents and strengths to defend those who cannot defend themselves.
  • Moira: Pride. With nobody's approval but her own, she's decided that she alone has the authority and the vision to chart the course for humanity's future, regardless of what it, ethics, or nature^note As per the precepts of biology, evolution does not "improve" a species, but rather just helps it adapt and survive in its immediate contemporary surroundings. There is a reason chimpanzees are still around, and that same reason is also why they rarely share a habitat with Homo sapiens. By declaring she knows best, Moira is effectively imposing her own will onto science itself, which just might make her the most prideful character in the whole cast have to say, and she’s perfectly willing to be an accomplice to a warmongering terrorist organization in order to do it. Her behavior exudes a mocking condescension for those around her, and although she does not yet have a direct nemesis among the heroes, she does possess many qualities that make her look like a dark reflection of Mercy. Both operate as healing support for their respective teams who want what they think is best for humanity, but Mercy's worldview is built around cooperation, selflessness, and peace, and she has organized her own bright attire to carry out this goal almost exclusively to help others at the cost of offense. Meanwhile, Moira has outfitted her own dark attire with just as many means to hurt and harm others as to help, and her own concept of "helping" revolves around holding all of humanity to her twisted ideals. She even stands out compared to the rest of the cast: in this cutting edge cyberpunk world, Moira's appearance, tactics, and mannerisms make her come across like an evil sorceress who would be more at home in a place like Azeroth.
  • Symmetra: Pride. She's convinced that her way is the right way and doesn't appear to understand why anyone would willingly resist the changes she wants to bring into peoples' lives, changes she genuinely believes are for their own benefit. Her response to anything that challenges her views is to dismiss it as either radicalism, ignorance, or necessary for the world's own good; whatever it takes to keep herself convinced that she's in the right. She is the order to Lúcio's chaos, being very terse, clinical and matter-of-fact in her mannerisms and declarations (the announcement for her ultimate? Just a calm, straightforward "Teleporter online.") to contrast his boisterous enthusiasm. Her sleek and painstakingly ordered corporate attire strikes a chord against his dreadlocked, rollerbladed "urban freedom-fighter" look, which holds true even if you take their optional skins into account, as Lúcio gets a hockey outfit while Symmetra gets a business suit.
  • Junkrat: Lust. Of the "personal enjoyment at the expense of others" variety. His love for chaos and destruction is unbridled and motivated less by anger or malicious intent and more by the childlike glee it brings out in him. Junkrat doesn't hate you, he just thinks the wanton chaos he leaves in his wake is fun, and he wants to have as much "fun" as possible. And unfortunately for you, he also thinks explosions are fun, and you're standing right where he wants there to be one. He and his partner Roadhog have a (fittingly) Mad Max-style scrapyard aesthetic that immediately distinguishes them from the rest of the more obviously organized civilized cast, and their motivations are rooted more in watching out for their own skins than any kind of mission or ideology.
  • Roadhog: Gluttony. He's a big guy, and considering that the portion of Australia from which he hails is an irradiated, likely resource-strapped wasteland, he probably didn't get that way by sharing. His unique highlight intro from the 2017 Lunar New Year event even shows him in a food coma surrounded by dozens of empty plates. Even outside of his eating habits, he exhibits a very self-centric attitude with voice lines like "what’s mine is mine," and he tends to view Junkrat less like a friend and more like a client. This even extends to gameplay, as he's the only tank class character with no defensive ability that benefits or extends to his teammates (aside from Wrecking Ball); all of his abilities are geared towards helping just himself.
  • Ashe: Pride. Growing up with only the silent and unquestioningly obedient B.O.B. for company likely taught her to expect the same level of obedience in all of her relationships. And though she cares for her accomplices in the Deadlock Gang, it's clear that her regard is entirely dependent on them following her “my way, and my way only" mentality. Even those who serve her without question can get mistreated; in the epilogue for ''Reunion’, Ashe takes out all her anger on B.O.B. (despite the fact that he just saved her life by blocking Cassidy’s bullets with a traffic sign). This is in sharp contrast to Cassidy, who, despite now being on the opposite side of his former partners in crime, offers a peaceful compromise before the shootout, defeats them non-lethally, sends them back to their hideout instead of killing or arresting them, and is affable enough throughout the whole conflict to even apologize to B.O.B. for dismantling him. And, considering that she could have been extremely rich for life had she not run away from her wealthy family, all her crimes are likely committed with infamy and self-satisfaction in mind rather than personal gain.
• Clingy Aquatic Life: The supplemental web comic Binary starts with Bastion rising out of a pond with a kraken stuck on the side of his head. His unique Omnic Uprising tag reflects this.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Downplayed, but present. Most characters can be seen wearing something that explains their in-game abilities, ranging from a simple wrist-mounted grappling launcher to a full-out set of power armor.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Generally, good things and things belonging to your team are blue, green, and yellow, while bad things and things belonging to the enemy team are red, orange, and purple.
  • Players names, outlines and health bars are red for enemies, blue for allies, yellow for injured allies and green for players on the same group. Bullets and most abilities are also colored red or blue/white, so you can easily tell if it's either a teammate firing behind you or if it's an enemy flanker.
  • Almost all healing abilities have yellow effects, while anti-healing or damaging abilities have purple effects. For example, Zenyatta's Orb of Harmony is yellow and his Orb of Discord is purple.
  • The lights on Lúcio's clothes also change colors: yellow for healing and green for speed boost.
  • Mercy's healing beam is yellow while the damage boost is blue.
  • On the health bar, health is white, armor is yellow, and shield is blue.
  • An allied Reaper's teleportation is purple; an enemy Reaper's is red.
  • In Overwatch League games, from the spectator's point of view, one team has everything of theirs color-coded white, while the other team uses their own primary color.
• Color-Coded Speech: The game has different colored subtitles for each team so players can tell if an ally character is speaking, or an enemy. By default, the colors are blue (your team) and red (enemy team), but these can be altered for those that are color blind or just dislike those colors.
• Combat Medic: All heroes with healing capabilities are still capable of fighting to varying degrees. Some are able to both support and fight independently (such as Ana, Lúcio, and Zenyatta), but some require directly taking part in combat in order to support the team (such as Moira or Brigitte). Mercy is the closest to a "pure support" there is, but she can whip out her still-effective blaster if she really has to.
• Comeback Mechanic: Overtime. When the normal match time runs out or a team reaches 99% on Control maps, as long as there's at least one attacker on the control point or payload, the match continues to play on, giving them a little extra time to turn things around.
• Company Cameo: D.Va's default outfit, her pink, white and blue pilot suit, boasts the logo of Overwatch creators Blizzard Entertainment on the right leg below the other (fictional) logos.
• Conlang: Omnics have a unique written language built of dashes, dots and diamonds called "Omnicode," and is found all over the place in most levels. Lead writer Michael Chu stated it's not one-on-one translatable and not intended to be easily read by humans "who haven't been augmented", so no cipher of it currently exists.
• Continuity Snarl: The timeframe surrounding Kiriko's backstory created some confusing continuity wonk: her backstory mentions she trained alongside Hanzo and Genji while she was a child and the brothers were in their teens, that she witnessed the fall of the Shimada Clan when she was 12 (according to her hero biography), and that she would later join the Yōkai Gang at 20. This gets muddy as other supplemental materials (namely the Yōkai short story and a letter by Kiriko's mother) mentions the fall of the Shimada empire as happening ten-twelve-something years ago, though given the Ambiguous Time Period of each, one could reasonably fit in a vague time gap of activity before the present day, meaning Kiriko is somewhere between 22 to 25 years old (such wiggle room can be allowed since as of Overwatch 2, Blizzard stopped giving definitive hero ages in their biographies). However, this still leads to one conflict for where Hanzo and Genji fit in, as they're shown in Kiriko's origin stories looking somewhere around their early-mid teens alongside a young Kiriko, but based on what we know about their ages (38 and 35 respectively), they really should've been somewhere around their mid-twenties.
• The Conspiracy: According to Sombra's origin story, there's one out there shaping world events. They have their fingers in everything from the Vishkar Corporation to Volskaya Industries to the government of Numbani to both Talon and Overwatch itself; Sombra had to erase her own identity and go off the grid when they found out she was investigating them. Their symbol is apparently an all-seeing eye.
• Cool Plane: The MV-261 Orca, which serves as the spawn point for all Control maps released before Oasis, is very cool. It even has a basketball hoop!
• Corporate-Sponsored Superhero: D.Va plays with this trope. On the one hand, she streams her battles to thousands of eager fans and both her MEKA and her jumpsuit have various logos decaled on them (including the Blizzard logo). On the other, she's explicitly part of a specialized military response force slapped together in order to fight a giant robot.
  • Symmetra is about as direct a take on this trope as you can get. She's some type of specialist or infiltrator who operates at the behest of her employer, the Vishkar Corporation.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive:
  • The Vishkar Corporation mentioned in Symmetra and Lúcio's backstory is slowly revealed to be this trope. They took Symmetra away from her parents when she was revealed to be a Child Prodigy in light-bending architecture and prevented her from going back so they can use her talents for their own gain, without considering the emotional impact it might have on Symmetra and her family. They also took over Lúcio's poor neighborhood with the promise of improving their way of life, only to impose strict regulations, punishing what they perceived as "lawless behavior", and exploited Lúcio's friends and neighbors as a source of cheap labor. In the comic short "A Better World", when the people in Brazil oppose the Vishkar Corporation's plans to tear down their homes to make way for one of their buildings, they secretly send agents to blow up and set fire to a Favela in order to force the people to accept their changes, resulting in several civilian casualties and many more wounded.
  • In the webcomic "Going Legit", a wealthy CEO hires Junkrat and Roadhog to rescue his workers from Omnic terrorists but actually he wanted them to take the fall for an insurance fraud scheme he was doing. Both Junkrat and Roadhog catch on and they kill the bastard by hanging him with chains outside his office several hundred stories high, then blowing him and the building to smithereens.
  • The CEO of the Mexican company LumériCo is partnered with the Vishkar Corporation and has bribed public officials, created an internal company system of kickbacks and payoffs, and had plans to seize privately held land via government expropriation to expand LumériCo's facilities throughout Mexico. Once Sombra revealed his dealings via hacking, the public was so outraged that they revolted, causing the CEO to step down. That last is an image deliberately created by Sombra, though. In backstory material there are complaints from her about how he is actually an Honest Corporate Executive, and she expresses her disbelief that no matter how deeply she digs he really is that squeaky clean.
• Cosmetic Award:
  • Winning competitive games gives you special credits that you can eventually use to purchase golden versions of a hero's weapons, and top 500 players will receive an animated version of a competitive season's spray at the end of it.
  • Aside from the sprays you can get from lootboxes, there are also sprays connected to achievements. Most of these achievements require pulling off a rather tricky feat with your chosen character, getting a high enough kill streak, or just reaching a level threshold.
• Coup de Grâce: A few heroes, notably Mei, Ana, Reinhardt, Roadhog, Sombra, and Cassidy, have an ability that could disable the enemy for a period of time between less than a second to a very unhealthy 5 seconds. Mei is the most prominent example of them though, with this as her basic playstyle as she lacks direct combat ability otherwise.
• Cranial Processing Unit: Headshots still do critical damage on Omnic heroes.
• Crapsaccharine World: Overwatch lore has a bright, cheery, outwardly utopian society that has reestablished itself in the aftermath of a near-apocalyptic war, where the heroes and villains are ultimately broken individuals fighting because they don't know anything else, and indications are that yet another global crisis is just around the corner and Overwatch will be needed again. Society also has a seedy underbelly, with criminals, terrorist organizations, Mega Corps with of Corrupt Corporate Executives seeking to impose their own version of order, Fantastic Racism towards Omnics (robots).
• Critical Existence Failure: Played straight with playable heroes as to be expected, but also notably played straight with shields such as Reinhardt's Barrier Field or Winston's Photon Barrier. If it's still standing, it will completely block damage sources, including a 1000-damage-dealing D.Va Self-Destruct; as long as it has at at least 1 hit point remaining, it will completely shield from it as much as if it had 2000.
• Critical Hesitation Blunder:
  • In the short "Alive", Tracer has Widowmaker pinned, but instead of killing her asks "Why?", allowing Widow to make a clean escape.
  • Ana hesitating to shoot Widowmaker (who she knew to be Amelie) causes her to lose her eye and jeopardize the mission, leading her to faking her death.
• Crossover: Overwatch has done a handful of non-canon crossovers with other properties, namely regarding skins and other cosmetics:
  • The game features very liberal references to other properties by Blizzard, ranging from small background Easter Eggs to various skins — "Immortal Orisa" gives her a Protoss from StarCraft makeover, "Magni Bronzebeard Torbjörn" makes him resemble the king of the same name from World of Warcraft, "Butcher Roadhog" makes him resemble The Butcher from Diablo, etc. The whole gimmick of the Blizzard World map is that it's an Amusement Park with areas themed after the likes of Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, Heroes of the Storm, Hearth Stone, and even The Lost Vikings (no Overwatch itself though, for obvious reasons).
  • Overwatch 2 made a more explicit crossover with Diablo IV during the 2023 Halloween event, featuring Legendary skins of "Lilith Moira" and "Inarius Pharah", as well as a seasonal brawl taking place in Diablo-esque catacombs and even featuring a rougelike progression-based upgrade system, much like the original games.
  • March 2023 saw a crossover event with One-Punch Man, including several themed cosmetics including a much-speculated Saitama Doomfist skin.
  • October 2023 saw a crossover with Le Sserafim, tying in with the group's appearance at BlizzCon 2023, featuring plenty of snappy K-pop skins and other cosmetics.
  • March 2024 saw an event tied to Cowboy Bebop, featuring plenty of themed cosmetics, including skins redesigning several heroes as characters from the series, from Cassidy as Spike Spiegel, Ashe as Faye Valentine (with a Red Tail-inspired BOB), Sombra as Ed, Mauga as Jet Black, even Wrecking Ball as Ein.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Good God. There are 32 playable characters so far, and a variety of... unique ways to die to match. You can be frozen to death by Mei, or better yet, get an icicle shoved through your skull. You can get crushed by Reinhardt and Doomfist, stunned to death by Lucio's soundwaves, fried by Symmetra's turrets, and there's whatever Moira does to you. The list goes on and on.
• Crush the Keepsake: Reaper is shown stepping on Winston's glasses, which drives him into a rage. His glasses were a gift from Dr. Harold Winston, Winston's caretaker at the lunar base and his parental figure, who died during a riot.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: All over the place: In cutscenes, heroes have no cooldowns, (most notably Tracer, who blinks nigh-incessantly throughout every one of her appearances), larger heroes like Doomfist, Reinhardt, and Winston are basically Immune to Bullets and basically ignore anything smaller than a grenade thrown in their direction, while mobility skills are far more agile than they are in game, from Tracer blinking vertically to Widowmaker performing repeated Building Swings, Reaper being outright Super Smoke, and Reinhardt (and other Crusaders) sprinting with their shields up and sliding around cutting sharp corners that could never be replicated in game. And then there's the abilities they simply don't have like Reaper firing explosive slugs from his shotguns and Winston turning his experimental Barrier Projector into a IED (somewhat Justified in that the shorts were based off of earlier builds of the characters that never reached public gameplay).
• Cutting the Knot: When it comes to ultimate's that involve boosting health or making teammates more dangerous, many resort to the method of shooting the target until they drop dead, hiding or at least interrupting the ultimate. Others resort to simply pushing or dragging the target off of the map while they are nano-boosted or effected by the Sound Barrier.
• Cyberpunk for Flavor: Set in the near future, the world is experiencing economic and political decline, coupled with widespread social transformation after a terrible war; mega corporations have as much power as countries; advanced technology including Artificial Limbs, other cyborgs, and intelligent robots is becoming common; and most characters are dark or morally ambiguous. However, the future isn't inherently dystopian, and it is a lot brighter and more optimistic than typical examples of cyberpunk.

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