The Overwatch Anniversary patch contains lore interactions aplenty

After a quiet start to the year, it seems that Overwatch’s story is beginning to gather some pace once again. The recent Overwatch Archives event in April brought us a new comic for the first time in months, and ample amounts of in-game storytelling via voice lines. In a pleasant surprise to Overwatch Lore fans, this month’s Anniversary event has kept the pace going—and managed to do it in style, with over 40 new character interactions slipped into the game.

For context, there haven’t been as many new discussions between characters released in one go since the release of Overwatch in 2016—this is a glut of information, relatively speaking!

Overwatch’s pre-match phase sees its heroes chatter with each other in a manner that reflects on what could be “canon” lore, without it actually being canon itself.

In the Anniversary update, we see Doomfist’s attempts to recruit Hanzo to Talon continue, discover more about the origins of Lucio’s sonic technology, exactly how in the dark Symmetra is about her employer’s activities and more. There are plenty of light-hearted lines too, with Doomfist deciding to offer McCree some sartorial advice. Apparently his Talon organisation (“the winning side”, in his own words), will pay much better and allow him to buy some better threads!

Typically with Overwatch’s emergent storytelling style, we also get a few new questions at the same time as a few answers - with some being key plot points that hopefully will be the groundwork for moving Overwatch’s story forward.

One of the most interesting conversations is between Soldier 76 and Moira, where he calls her “a disgrace to Overwatch”, and maintains that “if he’d known what Reyes was planning he’d have never allowed it”.

Which begs the question - what was Gabriel Reyes (or present-day Reaper) planning? Was it the events of Overwatch Retribution, or something more sinister - perhaps regarding what lead to the downfall of Overwatch, when its Swiss Headquarters was destroyed 6 years ago from the present day in the timeline?

As with all things Overwatch Lore, we’ll probably have to wait a while for any answers to the big questions, but there’s plenty of interesting story points to delve into in the meantime!