Over the past few years the Overwatch timeline has gotten pretty confusing, with comics,
animated shorts, articles, ingame events and blog posts all from different times in Overwatch’s
history it can all get a bit jumbled up so to put the record straight we’ve put together
a timeline to tell you the complete story of Overwatch, so far.
Everything starts with the Omnica Corporation.
The company that first built the Omnics using their AI controlled factories called Omniums.
To begin with things went well and they established Omniums all around the world and Omnics became
a part of everyday life for humanity, however the Omniums began to break down and as a result
Omnica’s profits also collapsed, the company was dissolved and its Omniums where shut down.
However that was clearly not the end of the story, as around 32 years ago the Omniums
woke themselves back up and launched a military campaign against humanity.
It still remains unknown what caused the AI and factories to come back online and start
the war but they began to build new and more powerful Omnics designed purely for killing
including the E54 Siege Automatrons, otherwise known as Bastion Units.
The war began in Russia but soon spread around the world, it would later become known as
the Omnic Crisis.
The war raged for many years with each country trying to defend its nation in its own way.
In Russia they created manned assault robots, Germany implemented the Crusaders and America
set up the Soldier Enhancement program to create their own brand of super soldier.
However all these nations individual attempts to stop the Omnics failed so the United Nations
proposed taking the best of the best from around the world to form a strike team to
end the omnic threat.
The American Enhanced Soldier Gabriel Reyes was appointed leader and was joined by fellow
Enhanced soldier Jack Morrison as well as Ana, an egyptian sniper, Torbjorn an engineer
who worked on certain Omnics and other weapon and Liao, a mysterious character we still
know very little about.
Balderich from the Crusaders in Germany was also recruited but before he could join he
was killed in battle.
Before he died he chose Reinhardt to take his place on the team and Overwatch was born.
The team had some early success scoring more victories for humanity than entire armies
had done in the past.
They began to strike against the Omnic command and about 28 years ago they brought an end
to the Omnic Crisis.
After seeing the huge success of Overwatch and of course the public support of the heroes
Overwatch transitioned into a world wide peacekeeping task force.
Jack Morrison was appointed its new leader while Gabriel Reyes was instead put incharge
of the newly formed Blackwatch, the organisations covert ops division.
Its unclear what happened to Liao, the only member of the original Overwatch strike team
not to exist in game or in any other material surrounding the game.
Its speculated they may have died or gone missing during the Omnic Crisis.
Things went well for Overwatch for many years as the group slowly grew in size, but they
weren't without enemies.
An assassin known only as the Reaper started to appear around 22 years ago, seeming to
show no loyalty to any cause or organisation Reaper showed up in many conflicts around
the world.
We of course know the Gabriel Reyes is Reaper, it seems that he was both the head of Blackwatch
and pursuing his criminal interests under the alias of Reaper.
Of course it is possible that the Reaper who was active at this time was someone else and
Gabriel only took up the name at a later date, but it seems unlikely.
It was also around this time that Jesse McCree was captured by Blackwatch in a sting operation
against the Deadlock Gang.
McCree was given a way to avoid prison by joining Blackwatch and he accepted.
This is also around the time Mercy joined Overwatch.
A lot happened in the following decade.
Overwatch continued to grow, branching out into science and environmental study, even
setting up a base on the moon.
In Australia the government gifted the Australian Omnium to the Omnics in an attempt to maintain
peace, however this in turn displaced a lot of humans who lived nearby, include Mako Rutledge.
Angered at the loss of their homes these humans formed the Australian Liberation Front to
try and force the omnics out and retake their lands.
This culminated when they sabotaged the Omnium’s fusion core, but the resulting explosion also
turned the surrounding lands into an irradiated wasteland.
As Mako watched his homeland destroyed by his own doing he was also transformed, both
in body and mind and would later become known as Roadhog.
In germany a single Bastion unit reawoke.
A decade on from the battle it once fought in, it its programming was altered and the
machine felt a need to explore the natural world around it.
A number of Omnics also established a monastery in the Himalayan mountains.
Led by Mondatta, they would become known the world over for their efforts to bring humanity
and omnics closer together.
One of the monks was Zenyatta but sometime in this decade he left the monastery to travel
the world.
Lastly towards the end of the decade an environmental disaster hit the Overwatch Ecopoint Antartica
and forced the staff, including Mei, to enter Cryostasis.
At this point in time Overwatch has been operating for around 30 years and has become a giant
organisation, however recently allegations of corruption and illegal activity have been
leveled against them.
The existence of Blackwatch has become public knowledge and they lost contact with the Horizon
base on the moon after the genetically altered gorillas attacked the scientists.
A terrorist group known as Talon has also grown much more powerful, even killing the
Overwatch agent in charge of the operations against them.
They did this by brainwashing his wife Amalie into killing him before returning to Talon
who would continue the brainwashing and treatments that would turn her into Widowmaker.
In Japan the head of the Shimada crime family dies.
His eldest son, Hanzo, is set to take up his mantel but gets into a fight with his younger
brother, Genji, when he refuses to get in line and join the family business.
Genji is left for dead by Hanzo but is found by Overwatch.
Mercy manages to save his life and in turn Genji joins Blackwatch to assist in missions
against his old family.
Tracer also joined Overwatch around this time but was involved in an accident when her experimental
plane vanished, it was months later that she appeared but continued to vanish and reappear
at random intervals.
Overwatch scientists failed to find a way to ground her in the present day, however
Winston, who had recently escaped the Horizon base and landed on earth, invented the Chronal
Accelerator to stabilise Tracer in the present and also allow her some control over her time
travel.
Over these 2 years things got progressively worse for Overwatch until the point that Director
Petras was appointed to oversee operations and try to fix the problems within the organisation.
More and more accusations against Overwatch hit the newsstands, in particular involving
the Blackwatch division, linking them to gun running, torture, kidnapping and assassination.
The public began to turn on Overwatch and countries began to ban them from operating
on their soil.
This became a major issue in London around 9 years ago when the Omnic Extremist group
Null Sector kidnaped the monk Mondatta, London's Mayor and a hundred people.
However even with this happening the UK prime minister denied Overwatch permission to operate
on British soil to the frustration of Jack Morrison.
In the end Jack ignores the prime ministers instructions as well as phone calls from Director
Petras and sends his team to the UK anyway where they are successful in defeating Null
Sector.
In the following year Overwatch has very few victories.
Winston does successfully defeat a Talon leader known as Doomfist who is captured and imprisoned
but many of their other missions do not go as well.
Ana Amari is believed killed in action by Widowmaker during a hostage rescue mission.
Although she did in fact survive, she continued to let everyone believe she was dead for many
years.
Then some incident in Venice caused a massive investigation into Blackwatch and in the process
it was revealed that Gabriel Reyes had secretly recruited Moira into the organisation, a scientist
with a dark reputation.
Things begin to crumble within Overwatch as members leave rather than go down with the
ship.
Eventually Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes clash in a fight at their Swiss HQ.
Specifics about the fight are still unconfirmed, but during the battle an explosion destroyed
the building and both men were believed dead.
Shortly after the UN officially disbanded what remained of Overwatch with the Petras
Act.
Over the next 5 years tensions would begin to grow between Omnics and humans in Russia
causing the beginning of the Second Omnic Crisis.
Elsewhere in the world Genji would meet Mondatta who would help the cyborg ninja to find inner
peace.
A vigilante known only as Soldier: 76 would emerge who we know to be Jack Morrison.
Reaper would also continue to appear in conflicts around the world meaning that both Jack and
Gabriel survived the blast, although this is not known by the public in the Overwatch
universe.
Reinhardt would embark on a quest around Europe to help people.
D.VA would continue her reign as a pro starcraft player before eventually being inducted into
the South Korean MEKA program to protect her country from a giant omnic.
With Overwatch gone Pharah who had once dreamed of joining decided to leave the Egyptian military
and instead take up a position in Helix Security International.
Now around 2 years ago was when the game was just starting to come out and when the animated
short Recall takes place and Winston attempts to recall Overwatch agents back to action.
However at this time Reaper also manages to steal information on the whereabouts of Overwatch
agents from Winston’s computers.
The Recall message still goes out but the only person to answer is Tracer.
Elsewhere in the world Mei is released from Cyrostasis in Antarctica.
She finally manages to escape the Ecopoint base and ventures out into the world after
receiving Winston's recall message.
Two of the other Animated shorts also take place at around this time.
Alive in London where Widowmaker assassinates the monk Mondatta, and Dragons in Japan where
Hanzo and Genji come face to face for the first time since they last fought and Hanzo
believed he had killed Genji.
Shortly after this Soldier 76 attacked the Los Mertos gang in Dorado, there was some
speculation that this had happened at an earlier point in the timeline but it was confirmed
to have happened around the same time as the other animated shorts.
Other ex-Overwatch members are also being kept busy.
McCree fought with a Talon team on a train.
Reinhardt and his squire Brigitte dealt with a gang in Germany, and incase you were wondering
Brigitte is Torbjorns daughter.
Speaking of Torbjorn he stopped a rampaging mech known as a Titan which was being piloted
by an old adversary of his called Sven.
This is also the time Junkrat came onto the scene.
He had previously discovered a secret in the Australian Omnium before hiring Roadhog to
protect him and going on a world wide crime spree which amongst other things involved
killing a CEO in Sydney and stealing the crown jewels in
the UK.
In Egypt a god program called Anubis attempted to escape its quarantine only to be stopped
by Pharah and her security team.
The Indian based Vishkar corporation started work in Rio after destroying a rival business,
however as time went on they began to enforce their own brand of law on the people of Rio.
Eventually Lucio would steal their sonic technology and lead an uprising against them forcing
them out of the city.
In October of that year Soldier 76 and Ana were reunited in Egypt where they battled
against Reaper and Talon soldiers and someone known as Sombra exposed the Lumerico CEO’s
illegal activity forcing him to step down.
In November Reaper lead an attempted assassination on Katya Volskya in Russia along with support
from Widowmaker and Sombra.
However they failed to kill her and Sombra instead tried to blackmailed Katya into helping
her solve a great conspiracy she had began to uncover.
Around this time Widowmaker and Reaper also attempted to steal the Doomfist gauntlet from
a museum but their attempt was foiled by Winston and Tracer.
As the year comes to a close Lucio’s fame from pushing out Vishkar propels his album
to number 1 and Junkrat and Roadhog finish their crime spree and return to Australia.
The most recent year in the Overwatch timeline has also been packed full of important events.
First Torbjorn and Bastion meet and begin to adventure together after Torbjorn realises
Bastion isn't like other Siege units.
Following on from the events in Russia with Sombra, Katya Volskya recruits Zarya to assist
her in tracking down the Hacker.
Zarya ventured out across the world before eventually tracking down Sombra with the help
of an Omnic Hacker called Lynx.
However Sombra reveals to Zarya that Katya is dealing with her omnic enemies.
In turn Zayra would return to the battle that continues to rage between the humans and omnics
in Russia.
Later in the year Doomfist escaped from prison, reclaims his gauntlet and destroys some Omnics
in Numbani that were sent to stop him.
He then rejoins the Talon council alongside Reaper, Moira, Sanjay a Vishkar employee and
Maximillion.
A young girl called Efi saw the destruction Doomfist caused in Numbani and purchased the
scrap parts of the broken Omnics.
She created a modified version of the omnics with its own AI called Orisa to help protect
the people of Numbani against any future threats from Doomfist or anyone else.
Junkrat and Roadhog are thrown out of Junkertown and banned from entering by the leader of
the Junkers known as The Queen.
Towards the end of the year Reinhardt decided to answer Winstons call and rejoin Overwatch.
That brings you completely up to date with the present day in the Overwatch universe
that lines up with the start of January 2018 for us in the real world.
Where do you think the story will go from here?
Make sure to subscribe for future lore updates and speculation for Overwatch.
As always this is James for curse saying thanks for watching, and enjoy the game!