The first cinematic you watched, Bastion, was celebrated and loved by many military veteran organizations in how well it depicted PTSD. You can have a perfectly nice, and beautiful time (the scenery in the forest) but as Bastion heard the woodpecker he instantly lept into pure reaction and reflexes. Not even really aware of what it was doing only to afterwards "wake up" and see what they had done.
And the brilliant depiction of a PTSD service animal that brings/shows things to the person affected in order to "bring them back" and ground them in reality as an attempt to snap them out of the anxiety attack.
Damn, never even heard of or thought about any of this but now thinking on it you guys are so right and I can only imagine the emotions veterans with PTSD May have felt.
Yeah. My friend is a psychologist who helps a lot of veterans with PTSD and he loves all the ways he can compare what happened with PTSD that his clients have. He says the Last bastion can be mirroring a common thing that he sees where the veterans are recovering and beginning to enjoy life again (like him walking through the forest), before something triggers a PTSD attack (like the woodpecker in the short), causing a response which they think destroys the relationships with those around them (like when bastion destroyed the birds nest and thinks that he killed the bird or it ran away), causing them to revert back to their old ways and think about what they did (like when he saw the other omnics memory and went to go kill the humans in the city), continuing the cycle.
Veteran with CPTSD here, yeah bastion and Reinhardt are some of my favorite characters lore wise I was a top 500 console Reinhardt main in seasons 3-7 on PlayStation and this was the first fps I really fell in love with, I played cod and stuff but it wasn’t really my game I played it with my friends just to hang out but I love this game and they really have done so much with these amazing shorts I am supporting the game even now and am excited for the upcoming season, I play on pc now I bought a pc just to play overwatch on lol I’m not as good on pc but I’m working on it, but yeah man the bastion short is legendary as is Reinhardts, both made me tear up extremely watching
I've been seeing a bunch of 'new overwatch fans' reacting to the cinematics. I'm so happy the game's reaching so many more people since it became free to play.
it always makes me happy to see new people enjoying overwatch 🤧 the game gets a lot of criticism but the world itself with the characters and lore is super fun
I think you'll also like the Original Story shorts they made for certain characters, they aren't as cinematic for the most part but they do feature great visuals and excellent voice acting
45:55 The moment that kid became the coolest big brother in the world lmao. Imagine taking your little sibling to the Overwatch museum and actually getting to punch the snot out of Widowmaker with Doomfist’s gauntlet. 😂
Fun fact: That line that Widowmaker says about how spiders hearts never beat, that’s actually the reason as to why widow has that purple-ish skin color. Talon (Overwatch enemis, terrorist) took Widowmaker to brainwash her and slowed her heart rate down as much as possible without killing her so that she could have steady aim on her sniper so they can use her as a weapon, to make the perfect assassin. The lack of blood flow from her heart makes her purple.
A common misconception of Genji and Hanzo is that they aren't actually dragons, they are humans. It can be confusing since the dragons turned human and Genji and Hanzo wield dragon power.
and that is because people are stupid, and don't understand how to follow a story. they don't want to be told a story, they want to be informed of a message.
Ive always loved these shorts and watching how other people react to them. As a veteran player, I go back and watch these at least once a year and It brings me joy to see new people coming and enjoying the game I once loved If you look up the archives event cinematics such as Uprising, Retribution and Storm rising, you can go more backstory as to why they shut down and what they did prior to being shut down
Ok i know this is long but. Widowmaker's backstory is actually so damn sad and tragic. In her former life, Widowmaker was married to Gérard Lacroix, an Overwatch agent spearheading operations against the Talon terrorist organization. After several unsuccessful attempts to eliminate Gérard, Talon decided to change its focus to his wife, Amélie. Talon operatives kidnapped her and subjected her to an intense program of neural reconditioning. They broke her will, suppressed her personality, and reprogrammed her as a sleeper agent. She was eventually found by Overwatch agents, apparently none the worse for wear, and returned to her normal life. Two weeks later she killed Gérard in his sleep. Her mission complete, Amélie returned to Talon, and they completed the process of turning her into a living weapon.
It's important to note that Ana was quite close to the Lecroixs. Which is why she hesitated to kill Widowmaker because it was too personal a job for her at the time.
@Juansgh Widow also replies with "Adieu, Cherie" which translates to "Goodbye, Love" in response to Tracer's usual catchphrase of "Cheers, Love!" It's a neat detail most people miss.
worth noting that widowmaker's story is actually really tragic. she was and a famous ballet dancer the wife of a high level overwatch agent. Talon kept trying to assasinate him but kept faling so they kidnapped her, tortured and brainwashed her. Overwatch 'resuced' her and soon after she killed her husband in his sleep. after that talon completed her training and conditioning, slowing her heartbeat to improve her aim, turning her skin blue.
To this day DRAGONS is the best overwatch cinematic to me. They dropped it right after the open beta when everyone got to experience Genjis and Hanzos Ults (the other cinematics were released even before launch and open betas). So when they both used their ults at the end this shit was SO HYPE!
there’s a lot of lore that’s explained in short stories or comics that you won’t gain from just watching the cinematics. eruptionfang has a good video detailing the full lore of the game, if you’re interested in it i highly recommend!
After you're done with these, I'd love to see your reactions to the Origin Stories as well. They are smaller videos that give some explanation on some characters seperately.
My man welcome to OW! And yes, there are plenty of content and lore out there, not just cinematics but origin stories (Sigma’s origin story I think is my favorite) and there are also comics, novels (1 or 2 idk) But also there were events on OW1 every year that give you more story about what happened before (Archives: either when you’re defending King’s Row from an omnic attack and Overwatch was still a thing; or Blackwatch, a group who supposed to be like Black Ops in secret getting their hands dirty) or after (where it was reunited a group of OW members after Winston’s recall) There is also lore about Talon, a terrorist group lead by Doomfist (who Reaper, Widowmaker, Sombra, Moira are part of) And so much backstory of their members. Feel free to DM me or smn if you have any doubts! Keep it up man
honestly makes me so happy to see new overwatch fans check out the shorts, overwatch really brought the game some element with their cinematics, and lore, it made it feel real. keep it up mate!
The Overwatch history is that there was a war with the Omnics (sentient robots). Bastion is a Bastion unit, one of many thousands used as basic foot soldiers for the Omincs. For some reason he broke down before he could get into combat and woke up years later, after the war, and having lost most of his original programming. He still sees his prime directive, which was to attack that city, but he's kinda grown more sentient and just gives up on it to live as he pleases.
Quick thing about "dragons" i noticed; the narration is Genji and Hanzo's father telling them stories. I think this is Genji's attempt to re enact the story. However When hanzo says "real life is not like the stories our father told us" he actively is not yet willing to accept the past.
that does fit well with how the story says something along the lines of them reuniting and fixing the land they once broke but then hanzo says that line about genji believing the stories which is the point where they stop following the story
Highly reccomend the origin stories, and then watching a recap explanation of the entire lore! It goes over the things that the cinematica and origins don’t and explains a lot of things :)
I’d recommend the origins as well gives more insight on other characters that aren’t in cinematic yet and there’s some in game story cutscenes that you could also see
So happy you have gotten into OW, their cinematics, along with the game play of the game is great. :) "Hero" is still one of my favorite shorts, along with the Kiriko one now that recently came out. Love the atmosphere, the style and everything in "Hero" (which is the Solider 76 short), reminds me a lot of Batman in a way. Which Solider for sure is. A lot of people wanted Alejandra to be a hero at some point, but we never got her... we kind of got someone.. that many people thought maybe was her at first, but it was disproven. On the time frame, I think OW disbanded, Jack Morrison/Solider was "killed" in the blowing up of OW Headquarters about 15 to 20 years or so before the Hero cinematic takes place and the OW members are about to get back together... I think. Just based on age and time references.
Idk if anyone said that already, but in 2nd trailer when Soldier says "not anymore" .. its because in lore Overwatch was forbidden (Overwatch as an organization was disbanded) and so Soldier was an outlaw .. and yeah, in the end on the roof it was him, he was just babysitting girl, he just saved ..
The Iris is the Omnic religion, worshipping Aurora - the first sentient Omnic. But many humans worship Aurora too. Also, the Omnic Monk that Widowmaker killed was named Mondatta, he was the mentor of Zenyatta.
I retired from the game but I do stay in tune with the story and cinematics that release and I always love them so much. Weird to feel attached to the characters of a game I don't even play anymore.
This brings me back to 2016 when I fell in love with this franchise. The release of overwatch 2 really blinded me to how incredible the story that can be told with this world and I love seeing new people so enthralled with it like I was when it came out
After these animated shorts, you should check out the Origin Stories, and also the complete lore of Overwatch. SVB has made a great video about it (and it's very recent so it should have everything)
I still hope that someday Hanzo will be able to use a sword again since he already found out that Genji survived the critical condition Hanzo put him in when they were younger. As it was stated that Hanzo has always been better at the sword than Genji since Genji mostly slacked off when they were younger whereas Hanzo has always been the responsible older brother who does what is best for their clan. But maybe right now Genji is better because Hanzo sworn that he will never touch or practice the sword anymore after what happened with Genji and Genji probably got better at using the sword as of now, but once Hanzo have fully forgiven himself I hope that he will be able to use the sword again. Also Mercy was the one who saved Genji when he was in a critical condition, turned him into a cyborg and Genji didn't liked it at first but after meeting Zenyatta he learned to accept himself for what he is now and he embodies harmony just like Zenyatta. So Genji is basically a deadly yet peaceful and harmonious ninja right now.
The Omnic Wars: The Omnics were robots that revolutionized robotics, they had an extremely adaptive AI BUT, they were still just machines with no free will of their own. Until... ONE omnic suddenly and without warning gained sentience. This Omnic's name was Aurora. She was confused and scared - getting free will, sentience and sapience out of nowhere does that. So she traveled the world, meditated and eventually came to the conclusion that she wants to share her gift of free will with other omnics so she sacrificed her life and soul to give sentience to other omnics. This however had unexpected effects. As instead of giving sentience to all omnics right away - the first to gain sentience were the Omniums (A.I. Omnic factories). Scared, abandoned and about to be shut down, they decided that to survive they have to destroy humanity - afterall, the only experience and memories of them were of them shutting them down and with no legs of their own they could not travel the world and see the good in humanity. Thus began the great Omnic War. The omniums began to produce new, combat omnics to destroy humans. These omnics were known as Bastions and later more advanced models known as OR14s. These omnics also had no free will and were under the control of the omniums. Later, more omnics gained sentience, these omnics would also travel the world and meditate and eventually come to the conclusion that they have soul and free will like humans do. So they helped humanity defeat the Omniums, saving them. These sentient omnics would later become known as The Monks. They are spiritual monks and follow their own religion known as The Iris. The Iris is the transcended version of Aurora as when she 'died' she transcended the mortal realm and became something... more. Eventually over the years peace was created between the humans and the omnics and humans and omnics even began to have intimate relationships with one another full of love. Of course there still are humans who hate the omnics and vise versa. And also the omnic beliefs that they have a soul and they can transcend the mortal realm is actually true as we can see with Zenyatta, one of the wisest of omnics and a playable character. He can float with no thrusters or anti-gravity technology - which is done entirely with his faith. He also can heal people or cause them harm with his mind alone and possesses an array of meditational orbs that he can also control with his mind. He is wiser than any human and omnic in the world and he has helped hundreds of people in his life. Enlightening them with his knowledge. He can also become immortal for a short time, transcending the mortal realm and having 8 arms (the symbol of omnic transcendence).
I highly suggest reading the comics they are really good and build on the lore and relationships of the characters My personal favorites are London calling #2 and baset cause they show the characters lives outside of overwatch
I am very rusty about the Overwatch lore but, in short: Humans build Robots (Omnics) to do work and do military stuff. Robots realize that they don't really want to do military stuff and instead see the Humans as their enemies. Robots rebell and pewpew the Humans (think Skynet in Terminator or even the Dune story. Heck even Warhammer has a similar setup) Humans fight the robots and win. For obvious reasons humans are not really comfortable with Robots and so are distrustful but people try to get along (the cinematic with Tracer and Widowmaker show people trying to get along, Soldier 76 show bullies kicking a robot as if it was a lesser being). So Bastion in the first cinematic was a mass-produced attack robot used for war that turned on the humans, along with the other robots. They were discontinued and scrapped at the end of the Omnics/Robot war so that's why its cinematic is called "The Last Bastion". EDIT: About Blackwatch, basically Overwatch was the nice, polished front that everybody loved but there was also a more covert side doing missions that was not as "PR friendly", such as assassinating troublesome people or just doing missions in places where they had no jurisdiction. Think of the stories about CIA sniping leaders so that a more American friendly leader rise to power and you get the fist of it. So when the public found out that there was a very bad side to Overwatch, their goodwill was ruined and people called for it to be disbanded.
During genji and Han is cin, idk if you noticed but when hanzo goes into the temple and you get the shot of the moon, Genji is standing in the gazeebo with the moon behind him, watching.
If you want a better and more complete explanation of the lore and most of the background story I recommend a video called "The Story so far". It starts to be a bit old, so it doesn't include latest heroes and their stories, but it provides a way better picture for you to understand, since you were puzzled by the whole chronology and all :) (origin stories, as all the other said, are important too, mostly the animated Doomfist vs Tracer/Winston to understand the "main" bad guy. The Tracer or Winston ones explain a lot of things too, especially about them or the moon base ^^). Enjoy!
I love my manz 😭, Hanzo fought his brother cause the clan's elders told him to talk to Genji and made him participate in family bussines but Genji wanted to live the life his father let him live before... playing games, being a playboy. But in the end this thang turned into real conflict and Genji lost. Hanzo loves his brother so much that he wasn't able to give him the final blow even Genji suffered so much pain. He let Genji die (and he didn't confirmed the death)... Genji was saved by the doctor Ziegler which Hanzo didn't know and thought his brother was really dead, that is why he gave him the offerings at the temple "..the den of ur enemies." even when Hanamura was originally their home Hanzo left the clan after the fight cause the burden was too much to handle and the clan became his enemy. Mercy took Genji to Overwatch who gave him the new life in form of new body so he joined them. Hanzo declined the offer to be part of the organization lol. Hanzo believe his brother died that day so he didn't know the ASSASIN was actually Genji till he told him.
I don't know about OW2 but, the bird in the bastion short was in the original game, and the overgrown look with the flowers and grass, was one of Bastion's skins
I don't think you noticed but the story about Winston (the gorrilla) during the back story when he's exchanging the glasses for the peanut butter with the scientist the glasses focus and you see the last name of the scientist is Winston which means the Gorilla named himself after the scientist that took care of him
Overwatch has been an experience for me ever since I got it with my PS4 back in 2017 for my birthday in November. The gameplay is intense and it gives everything a multiplayer shooter- or any game should give. Frustration and adaptation from failure, and proud confidence as a reward for your performance. However, let’s get one thing clear: Overwatch has been one of the biggest games I’ve sat and watched get crap for years. This is because people don’t think for themselves, but rather listen to the first opinion they see online. And guess where that leads us. I don’t care about blizzard. I care about the game.
Holy wow, you are so handsome. And your eyes are so sweet and so expressive! Very much a joy to watch your reaction. I'm glad you're getting into Overwatch! I hope you enjoy both the game and the lore! Also, smooth peanut butter gang. B)
i see that you enjoy learning about the backstories of the characters, so i recommend watching the origins of the characters after the shorts. there is an origin story for almost every hero, you can probably do them all in a video.
Overwatch had their own black ops organization called blackwatch. Gabriel Reyes (Reaper) was in charge of that, while Jack Morrison (soldier 76) was in charge of overwatch. Let’s just say, there was a disagreement on how things should be done.
