Characters of Overwatch

Gameplay overview

Overwatch is primarily a team-oriented online first-person shooter, and an example of a "hero shooter" where players select from one of several pre-designed hero characters developed by Blizzard for the game. Overwatch includes both casual play modes, competitive ranked play modes, and various arcade modes where special rules apply. Most game modes bring together two teams of six players each into a match and compete in one of several objective-based game types based on the randomly-selected map, including taking control points and escorting a payload.

A match starts with each player selecting from one of the available hero characters. The game's characters are divided into four character classes: offense, defense, tank, and support. Offense characters do the majority of the team's aggressive damage. Defense characters are equipped to guard the objective and halt the enemy's advance. Tank characters can absorb large amounts of damage for the team, and support characters share healing abilities and similar status effects for the team or against enemies. The game will warn teams if they have an imbalance in their general class selection, and certain game modes require players to select different heroes. Players are able to switch between heroes mid-match after they are killed or if they return to their team's base.

Each hero character has fundamentally different attributes such as health and movement speed, at least one basic attack, and at least one unique skill. These skills can be used repeatedly after waiting out the skill's cooldown period. Each character also has at least one powerful ultimate ability that becomes available once its meter is charged, either slowly over time or through other actions such as killing opponents or healing teammates. Once the ultimate ability is used, the player has to wait for the meter to fill again.

Winning matches earns the player experience towards experience levels in the meta-game. The player earns a loot box every experience level, which contain a random assortment of character skins, emotes, speech lines, and other cosmetic items for each character without specific game-changing effects. Players can also purchase loot boxes with real-world money. Blizzard has provided free post-release content for the game, such as new levels and characters. Blizzard has also introduced limited-time seasonal events, offering new cosmetic items in loot boxes, themed levels, and gameplay modes.

Character overview

Overwatch originally featured 12 characters at its November 2014 BlizzCon convention announcement, but expanded to 21 by the next year's convention. The game is character-driven, and reviewers noted Overwatch's emphasis on the individual differences between characters in the same class (e.g., between two snipers) as a departure from dominant class-based shooter paradigms. Critics widely praised the game's accessible and detailed character design and its role in the game's overall success.

Similar to what Valve did with Team Fortress 2, in the absence of a dedicated story mode, Blizzard tells the backstory of Overwatch's plot and characters through media outside the game, including animated shorts, character press events, tweets, and webcomics. The game's story centers around a technological singularity in which humanity assembles a team of its best heroes, Overwatch, to fight off a rogue artificial intelligence and its robotic army of Omnics in an incident called the "Omnic Crisis". After winning its battle, the Overwatch kept the peace for about three decades before infighting led to its disbandment. The game takes place approximately sixty years in the future, during a time period in which the world is slipping into disarray, and former Overwatch members along with new allies and enemies are being called on to help protect the peace.

In early 2016, Blizzard released media kits with granular character detail for fan artists and cosplayers. Preceding the game's launch, PornHub reported a surge in searches for pornography including Overwatch characters. An intellectual property security firm issued multiple takedown requests to sites featuring such videos and other erotica created in Source Filmmaker.

Development

Overwatch was developed by Blizzard following the cancellation of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game Titan, a project that had been in works for several years. A smaller team from those on Titan were given the role to come up with a new project, and they came onto the idea of a first-person shooter that emphasized teamwork, inspired by Team Fortress 2 and the rising popularity of multiplayer online battle arenas, as well as their own development team unity they found to keep their morale high following Titan's cancellation.

The development team settled on a narrative of a near-future Earth setting following a global-scale catastrophic event - the Omnic Crisis in which robots, known as Omnics, rose up in rebellion against humanity until stopped by a peacekeeping group known as Overwatch. With selection of this global theme, the developers wanted to create a cast of playable characters to portray diverse representations of genders and ethnicities, including males, females, and non-human characters such as robots and a gorilla. The need for a diverse cast was important to the developers, as some of Blizzard's previous games had been criticized before for missing this mark; Metzen explained that even his daughter had asked him why all the female characters from Warcraft seemed to be only wearing swimsuits. Metzen stated: "Specifically for Overwatch over the past year we've been really cognizant of that, trying not to oversexualize the female characters." Kaplan explained that the industry was "clearly in an age where gaming is for everybody", going on to say that "increasingly, people want to feel represented, from all walks of life, boys and girls, everybody. We feel indebted to do our best to honor that." In addition, Blizzard stated at the 2016 Blizzcon that some of the characters are LGBT, though did not specify which ones at that time. Blizzard has stated that " As with any aspect of our characters’ backgrounds, their sexuality is just one part of what makes our heroes who they are." Since then, Tracer has been shown to be in a romantic relationship with another woman through one of the tie-in comics published online by Blizzard.

The team envisioned the characters akin to superheroes in this narrative, each with their own abilities, background and personality that could stand on their own, but could also fit into the larger story; this notion translated into the characters being agents for the game, which Metzen said still captures the "heroism and vibe" that superhero stories carry. The team did not want to have any characters that served solely as villains in the game, but did develop some of the characters, like Soldier 76, to have an unsure purpose within the narrative.

Genji

Genji Shimada is a 35-year-old Japanese cyborg ninja. Genji is an offense character whose agile, melee-oriented playstyle is difficult to learn, yet he remains a popular choice among new players who like his ninja design. In his origin story, Genji transforms from a slacker to a superhero. His family—the Shimada crime family—ordered his eldest brother and fellow Overwatch character Hanzo to kill Genji for his selfish and hedonistic behavior, but before he could die, Overwatch healer Mercy restored Genji as a cyborg. After quelling the rogue artificial intelligence (Omnic Crisis), Genji left the Overwatch team to find peace with his new body, mentored by Overwatch healer Zenyatta. Blizzard tells the story of Genji's reencounter with his brother Hanzo in an animated short. The game's Hanamura map, set in Japan, includes a memorial to Genji in what is assumed to be the Shimada family compound. Genji is voiced by Gaku Space.

Genji's main attack method is to throw three shurikens, either in quick succession or simultaneously in a horizontal spread. His abilities are Swift Strike, a quick dashing lunge with good range, and Deflect, a defensive stance that briefly ricochets projectiles back at enemies. His cyborg agility allows him to double-jump and run up walls. Genji's ultimate ability is Dragonblade, which temporarily replaces his shurikens with powerful, sweeping melee attacks. Gameplay-wise, Genji is a flanker and an infiltrator, best suited to one-on-one fights. Since the cooldown for his Swift Strike resets upon scoring a kill, it is best used as a finishing move. Genji's Deflect ability can counter many enemy ultimate abilities, like Soldier 76's Tactical Visor or McCree's Deadeye. While some characters function best when paired with specific teammates, Genji works best in isolation. Genji is strong against turrets like Bastion and those of Torbjörn, and is effective at flanking snipers. Genji is vulnerable against characters with energy weapons that bypass his deflection, such as Symmetra, Winston, and Zarya. Since Genji is reliant on Deflect, the common way to counter him is to bait him into activating it and then attack when it's on cooldown.

A vocal minority of players began to complain about Genji's balance with other characters in August 2016, as team strategies came to be centered around his rediscovered abilities when the abilities of other offensive characters were reduced. Later that month, Blizzard rebalanced Genji by reducing the power of his abilities. At the end of 2016, Blizzard offered a special "oni" character skin as a promotion for players who also played the company's Multiplayer online battle arena game Heroes of the Storm.

McCree

Jesse McCree is a 37-year-old American bounty hunter and vigilante with a Wild West motif. An expert marksman, he wields a Peacekeeper six-shooter to either snipe enemies at a distance with precision fire, or fan the hammer to quickly unload the entire cylinder at close range. His abilities are Combat Roll, a quick dive which instantly reloads his revolver, and Flashbang, a short-range grenade which stuns enemies and interrupts their abilities. McCree's ultimate ability is Deadeye, which allows him to line up headshots on every enemy in his sight, with resulting damage proportional to the time spent aiming.

Based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, McCree is a former member of the Deadlock Gang, a group of traffickers in military hardware operating in the American Southwest. He and his fellows were captured in an Overwatch sting operation, and he was given a choice: prison, or serving in Blackwatch, the black ops division of Overwatch. He chose the latter, believing he could make amends for his past crimes, and revelling in the lack of bureaucratic oversight. When Overwatch began to collapse and Blackwatch sought to reform it to its own ends, McCree went underground, resurfacing years later as a gunslinger for hire.

Gameplay-wise, McCree has seen a confusing sequence of buffs and nerfs which led some to jokingly call him "the most indecisive character" of the game. Initially, his burst damage output and versatility on all ranges made him a popular pick in almost any situation, but after numerous tweaks, he lost his main role of a tank killer and became a somewhat ambiguous anti-flanker with additional long-range capability.

McCree is voiced by Matthew Mercer.

Pharah

Pharah (real name Fareeha Amari) is a 32-year-old Egyptian security officer. She wears the Raptora Mark VI, a jetpack-equipped combat suit, and wields a rocket launcher. She has a Wedjat (Eye of Horus) tattoo around her right eye. Her abilities are Concussion Blast, a rocket with powerful knockback but no damage, and Jump Jets, a quick jetpack-assisted vertical ascension comparable to a rocket jump. Pharah's ultimate ability is Rocket Barrage, a continuous stream of small air-to-ground projectiles.

Fareeha Amari is the daughter of Ana Amari, one of the founding members of Overwatch. She served as an officer in the Egyptian Army and aspired to follow in her mother's footsteps, but Overwatch was disbanded before she could join its ranks. After leaving the army, Pharah took a job with Helix Security International, a private security firm contracted to protect an artificial intelligence facility below the Giza Plateau.

Pharah is a solid attacker able to consistently maintain pressure on the enemy team. Her rocket launcher allows her to hold chokepoints or lay out suppressive fire onto objectives both in offense and defense, and her vertical agility renders her out of reach for characters reliant on close-range fighting. Her Concussion Blast disrupts enemy formations, and in the hands of a skilled player it can be used to score environmental kills. Pharah is a good match with Mercy, whose Guardian Angel ability allows both of them to fly alongside each other. Pharah is vulnerable against long-range oriented characters, especially those wielding hitscan weapons, such as Widowmaker or McCree.

Pharah is voiced by Jen Cohn.

Reaper

Reaper (real name Gabriel Reyes) is a 56-year-old American mercenary and terrorist, originally a founding member of Overwatch. He is attired in a black hooded trenchcoat with a white skull mask and wields twin "Hellfire shotguns". His abilities are Shadow Step, a medium-range line of sight teleport, and Wraith Form, a brief period of invincibility. He is also able to heal himself by taking the life essence of fallen enemies, visible as red burning globes on the ground. Reaper's ultimate ability is Death Blossom, a twin shotgun gun kata which deals massive damage in a short radius.

Born in Los Angeles, Gabriel Reyes was a veteran officer of the United States Armed Forces who was subjected to a "soldier enhancement program", where he and the other selectees were genetically enhanced to become "perfect soldiers". When the United Nations formed Overwatch to combat the Omnic Crisis, Reyes was one of the two men from the program on the shortlist to join up, and was initially tapped to lead it. However, he was passed over in favor of his friend Jack Morrison, causing a rift between the two men. Reyes was later named commander of Blackwatch, Overwatch's black ops division, but his jealousy of Morrison (due to Morrison's publicity as the official leader of Overwatch, versus Reyes' secret dealings with Blackwatch) eventually caused Reyes to reveal Blackwatch's existence to the public, destroying both organizations and resulting in a battle that destroyed their headquarters in Switzerland. Both men were believed dead, but in reality survived, although Reyes's cells are now simultaneously decaying and regenerating, causing his body to fall apart and rebuild itself over and over again.

Reyes resurfaced years later as "the Reaper", a mysterious mercenary responsible for terrorist attacks all around the world, having been consumed by his hunger for fame to the point that he no longer cared what he was known for. He has developed the ability to steal life essence from his enemies, and also become incorporeal to avoid harm. His true identity is unknown to the rest of the world, as are his motivations, though a pattern of his movements indicates that he is hunting down former agents of Overwatch. He appears in the cinematic trailer, teamed with Widowmaker in a raid in the Overwatch Museum to steal Doomfist's gauntlet for the Talon organization. He also appears in the animated short "Recall", where he raids Winston's lab at Gibraltar to steal his list of Overwatch agents, though he was unsuccessful.

Reaper is a flanker/assassin type of character, able to teleport behind enemy lines and attack from the rear to single out targets of importance, before using Wraith Form to escape. His edgy and menacing design makes him a popular pick for new players, but his playing style demands the knowledge of the map's layout to be effective. The ability to heal from kills allows him to take out several weaker characters in a row, but his own health pool is not big enough to last against stronger threats in a direct combat. Reaper is vulnerable while executing his Death Blossom, so proper usage of it relies heavily on the element on surprise, taking enemies out with its massive damage output before they get the chance to react.

Reaper is voiced by Keith Ferguson.

Soldier: 76

Soldier: 76 (real name John "Jack" Morrison) is a 55-year-old American soldier-turned-vigilante and a founding member of Overwatch. He wears a facemask with a visor and carries an experimental pulse rifle equipped with an underbarrel "Helix" rocket launcher. His abilities are Sprint, a forward run with no duration limit or cooldown, and Biotic Field, a deployable device which regenerates the health of allies in the immediate vicinity. His ultimate ability, Tactical Visor, makes his rifle automatically track enemies in his line of sight for a brief period, similar to an aimbot.

Jack Morrison was born in rural Indiana, and enlisted in the United States military when he was eighteen. His bravery and work ethic earned him the attention of the "soldier enhancement program", and he later joined Overwatch alongside his friend Gabriel Reyes. His contributions to its success in ending the Omnic Crisis led to his being granted command of the task force, leading to a rift between him and Reyes. As Overwatch came under worldwide scrutiny due to allegations of corruption, the tensions between the two men came to outright conflict, resulting in the destruction of Overwatch headquarters. Morrison was believed to have been killed in the explosion, and was reportedly buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Six years later, however, Morrison resurfaced as the vigilante "Soldier: 76", becoming the focus of an international manhunt following a series of attacks against former Overwatch facilities, stealing weapons and advanced technologies. He wages a personal war to discover the truth behind the events that led to the fall of Overwatch.

Soldier: 76 was the most popular offense character during the game's open beta. He was conceived as a "gateway hero" to help players that are used to modern shooters ease into the game, but his versatility and high skill ceiling makes him a good choice for veteran players as well. He is able to perform well in almost any situation, being effective on all ranges, move quickly around the battlefield, as well as able to heal both himself and his team. On the downside, unlike other attackers, he lacks a direct specialization, and his ultimate ability has less potential impact on the game. His pulse rifle is best fired in short bursts at range and in full auto in close quarters, where accuracy is less of an issue.

Soldier: 76 is voiced by Fred Tatasciore.

Sombra

Sombra (real name unknown) is a 30-year-old Mexican hacker and infiltrator. In the Overwatch narrative, Sombra had been orphaned at an early age but quickly discovered her natural gift for hacking. She initially used it as part of the Los Muertos gang that fought against a corrupt Mexican government. Over the years her hacking expanded to other global corporations and powers, managing to keep her identity secret. She was eventually discovered by a mysterious organization that forced her into hiding, destroying all records of her existence. She augmented her body with cybernetic attachments to help her hack, and joined the criminal organization Talon to discover the identity of the organization that uncovered her.

Within the game, Sombra is a Support role. She is equipped with a low-damage, high-capacity machine pistol for short range combat and her trademark ability is Hacking. Hacked enemies cannot use their abilities, hacked turrets are disabled, and hacked health kits respawn faster and become unusable to the enemy team. Sombra also has Thermoptic Camo that gives her a period of invisibility paired with a speed boost, and can launch a Translocator beacon that she can to teleport to later. Her passive ability, Opportunist, enables her to track enemies that are low on health, even through obstacles. Sombra's ultimate ability is EMP, a magnetic shockwave that hacks all enemies around her, as well as disabling their barriers and shields.

Sombra was introduced into Overwatch through alternate reality game (ARG) starting as early as the game's open beta, as to give "an idea of who she is and a little bit of her personality before we even unveiled her", according to Blizzard's lead hero designer Geoff Goodman. Sombra is voiced by Carolina Ravassa.

Tracer

Tracer (real name Lena Oxton) is a 26-year-old British pilot and adventurer. She wields dual rapid-fire pulse pistols, and is equipped with a "chronal accelerator" which grants her the ability to either jump forward in time (Blink) or rewind three seconds into the past (Recall). Her ultimate ability is Pulse Bomb, an explosive charge that sticks to enemies, exploding after a brief delay for massive damage.

Born in London following the events of the Omnic Crisis, Lena Oxton became the youngest test pilot in Overwatch's experimental flight program, and was tapped to test the "Slipstream", a fighter jet that used teleportation technology. During the test flight, a malfunction caused the craft to vanish and Tracer along with it. She was presumed dead. However, she reappeared months later, though suffering from a condition preventing her from maintaining a physical form and which caused her to vanish for hours or even days at a time. It was discovered that the accident desynchronized her molecules from time itself, a condition eventually called "chronal disassociation." The enhanced gorilla scientist Winston invented the chronal accelerator to re-synchronize her with the normal flow of time.

Tracer was the first Hero developed for the game and used to test the gameplay mechanics. Tracer features in the cinematic trailer, teamed with Winston as she tries to stop Widowmaker and Reaper from taking Doomfist's gauntlet. She also appears in the cinematic short "Alive", as she unsuccessfully tries to stop Widowmaker from assassinating the omnic monk Tekhartha Mondatta in London. Tracer is featured on the game's cover art, and is a playable hero in Heroes of the Storm. It was revealed in an Overwatch comic that she is a lesbian.

Tracer is voiced by Cara Theobold.

Bastion

Bastion is a 30-year-old combat robot-turned-explorer. It can shift between a mobile form outfitted with a submachine gun ("Configuration: Recon") and a stationary form equipped with a Gatling gun ("Configuration: Sentry"). It also has the ability to enter self-repair mode to quickly regain lost health. Its ultimate ability is Configuration: Tank, which allows it to roll on treads and fire explosive rounds from a smooth-bore cannon for a short period of time.

Bastion is a SST Laboratories Siege Automaton E54, a battle automaton originally designed for peacekeeping purposes; during the Omnic Crisis, they were deployed against their human makers becoming a symbol of the horrors of the war. Bastion was severely damaged in the field during the final days of the war, and was left dormant and exposed to the elements. For more than a decade, it became overgrown with plant life and the nests of small animals, until it mysteriously reactivated. It had developed a fascination with nature, but its combat programming still took over whenever it encountered anything it perceived as a threat. Due to conflicts with fearful humans, Bastion largely avoids populated areas in favor of exploring the wild. It is usually accompanied by a small bird named Ganymede.

Bastion is voiced by Chris Metzen.

Hanzo

Hanzo Shimada is a 38-year-old Japanese assassin and mercenary. He wields a bow with specialized arrows, including sonic arrows to detect enemies and scatter arrows to hit multiple targets with ricochets. He is also able to scale walls, enabling him to reach vantage points. His ultimate ability is Dragonstrike, in which he unleashes a spiraling spirit dragon that can travel through obstacles to deal damage over a wide area.

Hanzo is the elder brother of Genji, and the heir to the head of the Shimada clan. He was trained from an early age to take over the clan, becoming a skilled warrior and marksman, as well as a strategist. When his father died, Hanzo was directed by the clan elders to bring Genji into line; and when Genji refused, the two brothers battled, resulting in what appeared to be Genji's death. Guilty and grief-stricken, Hanzo abandoned the clan and travelled the world in an effort to restore his honor.

Hanzo is the focus of the animated short "Dragons", where he visits his family's castle on the day of his duel with Genji, leaving offerings at the castle shrine to honor Genji's memory.

Hanzo is voiced by Paul Nakauchi.

Junkrat

Junkrat (real name Jamison Fawkes) is a 25-year-old Australian scavenger, mercenary and anarchist. He carries a frag grenade launcher and employs bear traps and remote-detonated concussion mines; when he is killed, several primed grenades are released from his body in a final attempt to get back at the attacker. Junkrat's ultimate ability is RIP-Tire, a self-propelled truck wheel loaded with explosives that he's able to manually steer and detonate.

After the Omnic Crisis, an "omnium" - an A.I. controller that directs omnics as part of a hive mind - was destroyed in the Outback, turning it into an irradiated wasteland. Living in the ruins are the Junkers, a group of scavengers and mercenaries; Junkrat was among their numbers. The effects of the radiation awakened a sense of madness which soon developed into pyromania. In the heart of the destroyed omnium, Junkrat found a valuable secret, making him the target of bounty hunters and rival gangs. He made a deal with the Junker enforcer Roadhog, who agreed to become his personal bodyguard in return for a 50-50 share of the profits from their finds.

Junkrat is voiced by Chris Parson.

Mei

Dr. Mei-Ling Zhou is a 31-year-old Chinese climatologist and adventurer. She wields an Endothermic Blaster that can either freeze enemies in place with a short-range beam or shoot a long-range icicle projectile. She has the ability to encase herself in a solid ice block to shield herself from damage and heal injuries, as well as the ability to erect walls of solid ice with many versatile uses, primarily for blocking the enemies. Her ultimate ability is Blizzard, which calls down her personal weather modification drone to freeze all enemies in a wide radius.

Mei was employed by Overwatch to find the cause for the planet's changing climate, which had been variously blamed on industry, the increasing omnic population, and increased consumption of natural resources. While deployed at an Overwatch base in Antarctica, Mei and the other scientists there were trapped by a polar storm that damaged the facility. Lacking sufficient resources to wait for a rescue, Mei and the others entered cryostasis. Mei was the only survivor when she was found close to a decade later; by that time, Overwatch had disbanded, and all of the bases set up to monitor the climate crisis had stopped functioning. Mei elected to carry on the work alone.

During Overwatch's 2016 holiday event, a new game mode centers on Mei was added, called "Mei's Snowball Offensive", with each player controlling Mei. Her ice shield and ice wall abilities were left unchanged, but her blaster was replaced with a single-shot snowball thrower that would be an instant kill if it an unshielded opponent. The blaster could be reloaded by finding a patch of snow that randomly appeared on the map. Mei's ultimate ability enabled her to fire the snowball blaster several times without reloading for a short period of time. In addition to this, Blizzard created a new Legendary (highest rarity) skin for Mei that could be awarded during this event, which included a reskinning of her ice block into a snowman. Players criticized this new skin for being considered as Legendary, commenting that it was only a recolor of her base skin with a hat puff, and tool. Jeff Kaplan acknowledged the complaints, stating "We just sort of make a gut call based off of what we think is cool. Coolness is very subjective, and based off of the community reaction it seems like our gauge was off on this one."

Mei is voiced by Zhang Yu.

Torbjörn

Torbjörn Lindholm is a 57-year-old Swedish engineer and weapons designer, and a founding member of Overwatch. His armor comes equipped with a mobile forge, and he carries a rivet gun and a forge hammer. He constructs turrets which can be upgraded, and also provides armor upgrades for his teammates to give a boost to their health. His ultimate ability is Molten Core, which overheats his personal forge, upgrading his turret, granting a speed bonus to turret construction and repair, as well as a damage and defense bonus.

Torbjörn believes that technology should serve a better vision for humanity, putting him at odds with his employers, who wanted to control the weapons with artificial intelligence. His deep-seated fear of sentient machines, dismissed at first as paranoia, became reality during the Omnic Crisis, during which he was recruited by Overwatch. His engineering knowledge proved invaluable to achieving Overwatch's aim of ending the Omnic Crisis. After Overwatch was disbanded, his weapons were stolen or stashed away, and Torbjörn has set out to ensure they are not used to harm the innocent.

While Torbjorn was not the first character created for Overwatch, his design, meant to bridge between Warcraft and Overwatch, became the baseline for nearly all other asset design for the game.

Torbjörn is voiced by Keith Silverstein.

Widowmaker

Widowmaker (real name Amélie Lacroix) is a 33-year-old French sniper and assassin. She wields a versatile rifle that fires in full automatic at close-range, and can convert into a sniper rifle for long-range kills. She also uses a grappling hook to reach high ledges and poison mines to disable enemies. Her ultimate ability is Infra-Sight, which activates her recon visor to highlight all enemies through walls for her and her team, similar to a wallhack.

Amélie was the wife of Gérard Lacroix, an Overwatch agent heading operations against the terrorist organization known as Talon. When their assassins were unable to get close to Lacroix, they kidnapped Amélie and reprogrammed her as a sleeper agent. She was found and returned home by Overwatch agents, unaware of what had happened; two weeks later, she killed her husband in his sleep. Returning to Talon, she underwent extensive training in the covert arts, and her physiology was altered to slow her heart, turning her skin blue. Her emotional responses numbed by the conditioning, she feels little more than the satisfaction of the kill.

Widowmaker appears in the intro cinematic, teamed with Reaper to steal Doomfist's gauntlet from the Overwatch Museum; a boy visiting the museum uses it against her. She is also featured in the animated short "Alive", on a mission to assassinate the omnic monk Tekhartha Mondatta, an advocate for peaceful human-omnic relations.

Widowmaker was the most popular defense character during the game's open beta.

Widowmaker is voiced by Chloé Hollings.

D.Va

D.Va (real name Hana Song) is a 19-year-old South Korean mecha pilot and former pro gamer. She pilots a combat mecha armed with twin fusion cannons, shotgun-like weapons that require no ammunition or reload time. Her mecha is equipped with rocket boosters for short bursts of flight, as well as a defense matrix that allows it to shoot enemy projectiles out of the air. D.Va's ultimate ability, Self-Destruct, overloads and detonates her mecha, dealing massive damage to all enemies in a huge radius. If her mech is destroyed (either by her ultimate or in combat), she ejects and continues to fight on foot, armed with a mid-range blaster, until her mecha can be summoned again. The South Korean army developed automated battle mechs to protect its cities against a massive omnic that rose from the East China Sea. As the omnic learned from its battles with the South Korean military, it disrupted the mechs' drone-control abilities, forcing the army to turn to human pilots. They elected to recruit professional gamers, who they believed possessed the necessary skills to pilot their mechs. D.Va was the reigning StarCraft II world champion at the time, with a reputation for playing to win at all costs and showing no mercy to her opponents. She has since become a global icon, streaming footage of her combat missions.

D.Va is voiced by Charlet Chung.

Orisa

Orisa is a one month old giant four-legged Omnic with a female personality built by the young robotics prodigy Efi Oladele from the wreckage of an OR15 defense robot after Efi witnessed an attack by Doomfist in her home city of Numbani. The name derives from "orisha", spirits in the Yoruba religion of West Africa.

Orisa is considered a "mechanical peacekeeper" and is designed more to protect teammates than herself. Kaplan believed that Orisa would strategically play similar to Reinhardt as the "anchor" for an advancing team that allies would focus around. Orisa's primary weapon is the Fusion Cannon, a long-range projectile-based machine gun that has an alternate fire mode that can drag enemies towards a spot, similar to Zayra's Graviton Surge. She can deploy a temporary energy barrier similar to Reinhardt's shield that stays at the position placed and strategically defending teammates. The robot can activate her Fortify ability to prevent all forms of crowd control against her while active. Her ultimate ability is a Supercharger that is placed in a location and gives all allies an attack boost while in they are in line of sight, though the Supercharger itself can be destroyed by enemy fire.

Orisa, the game's 24th hero, was revealed on March 2, 2017. Unlike the previously introduced hero, Sombra, which was the subject of a protracted alternate reality game that was met with some criticism, Blizzard opted to tease Orisa over a much shorter period via social media, introducing the character of Efi and new events in the Overwatch narrative happening on Numbani a few weeks before Orisa's reveal. Orisa was available on the Public Test Servers on the reveal, and is expected to be brought into the game for all platforms in a few weeks.

Reinhardt

Reinhardt Wilhelm is a 61-year-old German soldier, and one of the founding members of Overwatch. He wears a heavy suit of power armor, and carries a rocket-powered warhammer. His main ability is a wide hard-light barrier that allows him to protect himself and teammates behind him from enemy fire. He may also launch a flaming projectile that ignores enemy barriers, or use a rocket booster to charge into the enemy lines, crushing them against walls. His ultimate ability, Earthshatter, makes him slam his hammer against the ground, sending out a shockwave that incapacitates enemies in front of him.

Reinhardt is a decorated Bundeswehr veteran from Stuttgart who lives under a knightly code of chivalry. He served with distinction as part of the original Overwatch team and remained in service well into his fifties, his code of ethics and his blunt honesty making him a respected member of the team. Forced into mandatory retirement, Reinhardt was forced to watch as Overwatch collapsed, but refused to abandon its ideals as the world returned to chaos.

Reinhardt was the most popular tank character during the game's open beta.

Reinhardt is voiced by Darin De Paul.

Roadhog

Roadhog (real name Mako Rutledge) is a 48-year-old Australian enforcer and bodyguard. He wields a scrap gun that fires shrapnel in short-range bursts, carries a NOS canister to self-heal, and employs a chain hook to pull distant opponents towards him. His ultimate ability, Whole Hog, allows him to put a top loader into his scrap gun, firing it in full auto mode with increased knockback and no need to reload.

Mako Rutledge lived in the Australian Outback in the period after the Omnic Crisis. The government of Australia, in an effort to make peace with the omnics, allowed them to take possession of the omnium and the territory around it, displacing the human residents. Mako and other angry humans formed the Australian Liberation Front to strike against the omnium and the omnics that resided around it. In the end, the ALF overloaded the fusion core, destroying the omnium and turning the Outback into a radioactive wasteland, severely disfiguring Mako's face. Mako donned a mask and took to the broken highways on his chopper, forsaking his humanity little by little until he became a ruthless killer.

Roadhog is voiced by Josh Petersdorf.

Winston

Winston is a 29-year-old genetically engineered gorilla, scientist and adventurer. He wields a short-range Tesla cannon that requires no aiming, and wears armor that incorporates a jet pack, allowing him to make leaps across great distances and damage foes on landing. He can also project a temporary spherical barrier to protect himself and teammates from enemy fire. Winston's ultimate ability is Primal Rage, in which he briefly gives in to "the beast within" to get massively increased health and powerful melee attacks with knockback.

Winston was among a group of genetically enhanced gorillas living at the Horizon Lunar Colony, a research base on the Moon, intended to test the effects of prolonged habitation in space. He took his name from his mentor and caretaker, Dr. Harold Winston, the colony's chief scientist, from whom he also gained his signature eyeglasses. When the other gorillas rose up, killed the human scientists, and took over the colony, Winston escaped to Earth in a rocket he built himself. He later joined up with Overwatch, offering his scientific expertise to the team (such as building Tracer's chronal accelerator). When Overwatch disbanded, Winston went into seclusion at an old Overwatch base in Gibraltar.

Winston appears in the intro cinematic, as well as the animated short "Recall". The short recalls how he gained his glasses from Dr. Harold Winston, as well as fending off Reaper and agents of Talon who attempt to hack his database of Overwatch agents.

Winston is voiced by Crispin Freeman.

Zarya

Aleksandra "Zarya" Zaryanova is a 28-year-old Russian bodybuilder and soldier. She is armed with a particle cannon that can either emit a continuous beam of energy or launch an energy projectile in an arc. She is also able to project a personal shield onto herself or one of her teammates, and soaking up damage with these shields raises the power of her own attacks proportionally. Zarya's ultimate ability, Graviton Surge, forms a gravity well that pulls enemies in and damages them.

Zarya's village in Siberia was on the front lines of the Omnic Crisis, which devastated the region. As she grew older, she swore to gain the strength to protect her people and homeland. She became a bodybuilder and weightlifter, expected to break a number of records in the world championships, but the dormant omnium in Siberia awakened on the eve of the tournament, and she withdrew from the competition to join the local defense forces. Zarya was the second Overwatch hero added to Heroes of the Storm.

Zarya is voiced by Dolya Gavanski.

Ana

Ana Amari is a 60-year-old Egyptian bounty hunter, and one of the founding members of Overwatch. She wields a Biotic Rifle loaded with smart darts that damage enemies and heal allies, as well as a sidearm that fires a sleeping dart. She also carries Biotic Grenades that disable enemy healing and boost ally healing. Her ultimate ability is Nano Boost, which grants an ally a boost to attack and defense.

Hailing from Cairo, Ana was considered the best sniper in the world, and rushed in to support the unprepared Egyptian defense forces during the Omnic Crisis. Her marksmanship and her critical decision-making skills led to her being recruited by Overwatch, and she served for many years as Jack Morrison's second-in-command during the conflict. Even with her command responsibility, Ana refused to give up going on combat missions. Remaining in service well into her fifties, Ana was believed to have been killed by Widowmaker during a hostage rescue; when Ana hesitated to make the kill shot, realizing that her target had in fact been her friend Amélie Lacroix, Widowmaker shot her through her rifle's lens, destroying her right eye, then proceeded to kill the hostages. Though Ana survived, Overwatch soon disbanded; her daughter, Fareeha, who had served in the Egyptian Army and hoped to follow in her mother's footsteps, later became part of a private security firm and took the name Pharah. Initially choosing to remain out of combat as the world became embroiled in conflict, Ana realized she could not remain on the sidelines, and has rejoined the battle to protect her homeland.

Ana had already been part of the narrative of Overwatch from the creation of the Pharah character, according to Blizzard's lead writer Michael Chu; they wanted Pharah's parents to be important characters of the Overwatch group that would influence Pharah, and Ana had been established as a sniper in Pharah's story. When they started brainstorming new playable heroes, the idea of an alchemist was raised, leading to the concept of a "skill-based support healer", according to Chu. This led to them to consider making Ana this new playable character, as these support sniper skills would contrast well against those of the already-established character of Widowmaker. Ana was the first character to be added to Overwatch following its launch; she was announced and available to play on the Public Test regions on July 12, 2016, and was playable by all PC and console players on July 19, 2016.

Ana is voiced by Aysha Selim.

Lúcio

Lúcio Correia dos Santos is a 26-year-old Brazilian DJ and freedom fighter. He is equipped with futuristic roller blades that allow him to ride on walls, and is armed with a sonic amplifier gun that knock enemies back with sonic blasts. He uses music to either heal his teammates or increase their movement speed. His ultimate ability, Sound Barrier, grants powerful temporary shielding to himself and nearby allies.

Lúcio grew up in Rio de Janeiro during the financial upheaval caused by the Omnic Crisis. He turned to music to lift up the spirits of his disheartened people, performing on street corners and at block parties. When the Vishkar Corporation, a multinational conglomerate, moved in to redevelop Rio, they began to crack down on its citizens with curfews and began to exploit them as cheap labor. Lúcio rose up and stole a Vishkar sonic weapon and used it against them, rallying the people to rise up and drive Vishkar out of their neighborhoods. His leadership made him a global celebrity, and he began to perform in filled arenas worldwide.

Lúcio is voiced by Jonny Cruz.

Blizzard announced in February 2017 that Lúcio will be added as a hero character to Heroes of the Storm, retaining similar healing and support capabilities in that game.

Mercy

Mercy (real name Dr. Angela Ziegler) is a 37-year-old Swiss field medic and first responder. She wears a winged Valkyrie suit, which allows her to rush towards targeted teammates through the air, as well as slow her own descent while falling. She wields a Caduceus staff that alternately heals her teammates or boosts their damage output, and also carries a medium-range Caduceus blaster as a sidearm. Her ultimate ability, Resurrect, allows her to instantly bring fallen allies back from the dead.

Angela Ziegler was head of surgery at a Swiss hospital when she developed specialized nanotechnology to heal injuries. Her work earned her the attention of Overwatch, who recruited her as their chief medical researcher; the Valkyrie suit she wears was her own design. When Overwatch disbanded, she dedicated herself to helping those who were affected by decades of global war.

Mercy was the most popular support character during the game's open beta.

Mercy is voiced by Lucie Pohl.

Symmetra

Symmetra (real name Satya Vaswani) is a 28-year-old Indian architect. She wields a photon projector that can either lock a continuous beam of energy onto enemies in a short range, or charge and launch a slow-moving ball of energy in a straight line. She is able to create multiple small sentry turrets on walls and ceilings, and can launch a slow-moving elliptical Photon Barrier to aid her teammates. Symmetra is the only character with two ultimate abilities: Teleporter, which creates a persisting warp tunnel leading from the team's spawn point to her current location, and Shield Generator which constructs an energy node providing all teammates in range with additional shielding.

Symmetra is the first and currently only character who has seen a major redesign after the game's launch. At launch, she did not have either the Shield Generator ultimate or Photon Barrier, but instead could give a teammate nearby in line of sight a personnel energy shield. She was acknowledged by the developers to be one of the "least enjoyable characters to play", in part because of her lack of versatility and in part because of the "chore-like" playing style in having to reapply turrets and teammate shields; the developers found she would only be played in certain situations, making her one of the characters with the least amount of playtime. Her ability overhaul came in a December 2016 patch to address these issues, adding these two features to her skill set.

The Vishkar Corporation, based in southern India, created hard light technology that allowed it to build cities, and trained its elite architechs to bend the hard light into any shape needed for that purpose; with this technology, they built the city of Utopaea to serve as their base. Satya Vaswani's potential was discovered at a young age, and she was taken from a life of poverty to train at Vishkar's architech academy in Utopaea. Becoming one of the top students in her class, she combined the light-bending technology with the traditional dances of her homeland. Given the name "Symmetra", Vishkar dispatched her on clandestine missions around the world to oversee their corporate interests.

Symmetra is voiced by Anjali Bhimani.

Zenyatta

Tekhartha Zenyatta is a 20-year-old omnic monk and wanderer. Rather than moving on foot, he floats above the ground in a meditative pose. He is surrounded by a circle of floating metal orbs (resembling prayer beads), which he can physically launch to damage foes or indirectly use to apply regeneration to teammates or a defense-lowering debuff to enemies. His ultimate ability is Transcendence, which makes him temporarily invulnerable and applies massive healing in a large radius around him.

Zenyatta belonged to the Shambali, an order of omnic monks that had settled in a monastery deep within the Himalayas in northern Nepal, after experiencing a "spiritual awakening" that led them to believe that, like humans, omnics also possessed a soul. Their leader, Tekhartha Mondatta, sought to heal the breach between humans and omnics and bring them into societal harmony through the spreading of their peaceful message in public rallies (one of which resulted in Mondatta's assassination by Widowmaker in London). Zenyatta disagreed with this approach, believing that only directly engaging humans and connecting with them person-to-person will bridge the divide between man and machine. He left the Shambali monastery and wandered the world, seeking to help those he meets find inner peace (such as his encounter with the cyborg warrior Genji).

Zenyatta is voiced by Feodor Chin.

Non-playable characters

The following are characters who appear in other Overwatch media.

Athena

Athena is Winston's personal artificial intelligence, who supervises his vitals and keeps track of all former Overwatch agents. Together, she and Winston were able to activate the Recall that contacted all the agents at the beginning of the Second Omnic Crisis, which initiates the events of the game. She also serves as the in-game announcer.

Emily

Emily is Tracer's girlfriend. She is an English woman living in London, whom Tracer and Winston spent the holidays with. She first appears in the comic "Reflections," where Tracer shops for her Christmas present. It is unknown how long she and Tracer have been dating, but Winston does consider her family.

The introduction of Emily was lauded by critics and the LGBTQ community for confirming Tracer as the game's first LGBTQ character.

Hal-Fred Glitchbot

Hal-Fred Glitchbot is a famous omnic film director, known for his works such as They Came From Beyond the Moon. As an omnic, he receives much prejudice from society, including being the recipient of assassination attempts. On the map Hollywood, the offensive team must escort his limousine to his trailer, while the defense must stop them. He is known for hurling insults at the players, which vary depending on which characters are being played.

His name is a play on famous real-world director, Alfred Hitchcock, and the robot, HAL 9000, from the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Liao

Liao was one of the founding members of Overwatch, along with Jack Morrison, Gabriel Reyes, Ana Amari, Torbjörn Lindholm and Reinhardt Wilhelm. Not much is known beyond this, only that Liao is the only one of them who is unaccounted for.

Tekhartha Mondatta

Tekhartha Mondatta was an omnic monk and leader of the Shambali. In the years following the Omnic Crisis, Mondatta and a group of other omnics abandoned their pre-programmed lives and settled in a communal monastery in Nepal, where they meditated on the nature of existence and came to believe that they were more than just "artificial" - they possessed their own souls, just as humans did. Mondatta was a leader in advocating peace between humans and omnics and healing the wounds following the Omnic Crisis, and travelled the world spreading his message. Mondatta was assassinated by Widowmaker during a rally in London, despite heavy security and the efforts of Tracer. In the King's Row map, a statue of him holding the hand of a human child stands on the spot where he was killed.

Mondatta and Zenyatta take their names from Zenyatta Mondatta, a 1980 album by English rock band The Police.

Efi Oladele

Efi Oladele is an 11-year old scientist and inventor from the in-universe region of Numbani. After her parents gave her a robotic kit, she became interested in robotics and artificial intelligence. The character was introduced within the Overwatch narrative in February 2017, around the time that Blizzard started teased on its next character reveal (the 24th playable character). Jeff Kaplan affirmed that Efi was connected to this next character, but did not state in what manner. With Orisa's reveal, it was shown that Efi created Orisa from an OR15 robot after witnessing an attack by Doomfist on Numbani.

Katya Volskaya

Katya Volskaya is the CEO and head of the Volskaya Industries, a robotic company with the purpose of ending the lives of the Omnic.

Volskaya was first seen in the animated short 'Infiltration' where she was subject to an assassination by Sombra, Reaper and Widowmaker. However, Sombra hacks the alarms and puts the events into motion that ensures her safety. It is then revealed by Sombra, when she confronts Volskaya, that she has information that the technology she uses in her mechs was actually Omnic to start. Sombra blackmails Katya and in return, she is kept alive.

In the final scene, Volskaya hires Zarya to kill Sombra.

Dr. Harold Winston

Dr. Harold Winston was the chief scientist of the Horizon Lunar Colony, a research base on the Moon where a group of genetically engineered gorillas resided to test the long-term effects of living in space. Harold took a special interest in one young gorilla who showed a great curiosity for the world around him, beginning with stealing Harold's glasses because he thought there would be more to see. Showing the young gorilla a view of Earth, Harold gave him a piece of advice he remembered years later: "Never accept the world as it appears to be. Dare to see it for what it could be."

When the other gorillas on the moon base rebelled, Harold and the other human scientists were killed; his prodigy took his name "Winston" to honor him, his fallen mentor, and escaped to Earth in a scratch-built rocket. Winston also kept Harold's glasses, as well as a photograph of the two of them at the Horizon colony.

Doomfist

Doomfist is a title passed down between several characters that played a part in the Omnic War. The true identity of these characters is unknown, nor how many have had the title, but at least three different people have at one point taken up the title, each using the title in a different manner. These three are known as the Savior, the Scourge and the Successor. While this imagery reveals the appearance of the Savior and the Scourage, the Successor's imagery is kept within silhouette. Part of the Doomfist's title is a gauntlet that can unleash a powerful blow when it lands a hit, capable of taking down a skyscraper. Within the game's Numbani map, one area of the map is a museum display dedicated to Doomfist, and the payload for this map is a cart carrying the display of Doomfist's gauntlet. The game's first cinematic trailer has some of the Overwatch heroes fighting for control of the gauntlet. Chris Mezten described Doomfist as a "generational hero" similar to The Flash or Green Lantern, which came out of a throwaway line in the initial cinematic trailer and subsequently expanded into the Numbani map to help solidify its theme. Many have speculated that Doomfist will become a playable character in the future; Mezten stated while they do not have any committed plans for this, if they do create a Doomfist character, they will incorporate the backstory to remain consistent.