Overwatch - And the Books, Movies, and Games That Inspired It

Overwatch remains one of the most popular video games in recent memories. A team-based first-person shooter, Blizzard's most recent intellectual property has entertained gamers worldwide with its colorful cast of characters, in-depth gameplay, and regular updates to keep the game fresh and interesting.

Of course, part of the draw of Overwatch is that it draws from numerous other sources of entertainment to compile a world familiar and original all at once. But the truth is that, with a little digging and understanding, you can see some interesting threads from Overwatch to various books, movies, and games.

Now, while there are numerous examples of this, but the following really bring forth what inspired Overwatch.

Team Fortress 2 Gameplay

It is immediately apparent to anyone who has been playing video games that Overwatch has a lot in common with the classic team based FPS Team Fortress 2. Valve's Half-Life 2 mod has spawned into one of the most popular PC games of all time. And it is clear that TF2 inspired Overwatch.

From its colorful characters to its team-based mechanics, TF2 and Overwatch are so similar that some fans of the former claim that Blizzard stole the idea from Valve, as if Valve somehow owned the market on team-based FPS games. I suppose by that logic Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter are both rip-offs of Karate Champ.

Even if Overwatch and Team Fortress 2 possess similar gameplay mechanics, TF2 is clearly a shooter game designed for players to shoot each other down. Overwatch is a FPS game with objectives and tasks similar to a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena Game (MOBA) like League of Legends, Dota, or the Blizzard MOBA Heroes of the Storm.

The Omnic Crisis is Every Sci Fi Film Ever

The events that really kick off the plot to Overwatch is an event known as the Omnic Crisis. Humanity has developed robots so advanced that a group of AI have declared themselves citizens, and initiate a civil war against the world government.

While credit should go to Blizzard for breathing life into their android characters (Zenyatta is an android Buddhist monk, and Bastion has an adorable bird friend), the truth is that a robot attack has been done so often that it's clear Blizzard just drew from popular concepts to incorporate a familiar threat to ease gamers into the more complicated conflict between Talon and Overwatch.

Now, also keep in mind that Blizzard, while they did add nuance to a cliche, are far from the first to do that. Movies like Westworld, Blade Runner, Terminator, Artificial Intelligence, and even Avengers: Age of Ultron have all put clever spins on the evil robot genre.

The Shambali are Straight Out of I, Robot

One interesting addition to Overwatch's lore is that of the Shambali, an order of monks comprised of Omnic androids. One of the playable characters, Zenyatta, is a member of this order. It's this order that helps Genji, another playable character, come to terms with his cybernetic attachments after being torn to shreds. The Shambali is one of Blizzard's more creative additions to Overwatch.

But it is far from original. Something inspired it.

In Isaac Asimov's classic short story collection I, Robot, there is a short story called "Reason." In this short story, the androids develop something of a religious order as part of its programming, all in order to justify its behavior to protecting the human occupants in a space craft. While the Shambali are different from this, there is enough similarity to theorize that the launching point for the Shambali came from the mind of one of sci-fi's greatest writers.

Overwatch is Basically The Incredibles

When looking at the plot of Overwatch, it's clear Blizzard drew heavy inspiration from another pastiche of genre fiction, Pixar's The Incredibles. Though Overwatch's character designs do draw from The Incredibles's art style, the much clearer link between the two is the plot.

Both of them deal with a society of superheroes who, following a controversy, are forced into retirement, only to be forced into action years later. When you break down both of their plots to this basic level, they are identical. It would almost sound like Blizzard just took the idea of The Incredibles, and took it to its logical extreme in terms of colorful characters.

The devil is, of course, in the details. But don't worry. We have plenty of those details to pick apart, too, as Overwatch was inspired by many books, movies, and games.

Soldier 76 is Robocop and Captain American's Love Child

One of the key offensive characters in Overwatch, Commander Jack Morrison (or Soldier 76) is a super soldier commander of the Overwatch team. He started as a young boy who, upon witnessing the Omnic Crisis, joined the military, where he became part of a super soldier serum. He became in charge of a legion of super-hero types as a patriotic commander.

Also, his outfit as Soldier 76 incorporates American colors.

Compare that to Captain America, who joined the armies to fight Nazis, became a super soldier, and then led the Avengers.

But toward the collapse of Overwatch, Jack Morrison was viciously attacked by Gabriel Reyes (who would go on to become Reaper). Morrison, too stubborn to die, is brought back from the bring using cybernetic attachments.

Like Robocop.

Blizzard was inspired by these movies and comic books to create one of Overwatch's flagship characters.

McCree is a Clint Eastwood Fanboy

Nothing too shocking. Blizzard has never been subtle about their inspiration for this cowboy-themed character. But it still stands to state that McCree is clearly inspired by the old westerns from the 50s and 60s. McCree's core look draws from Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name character. His iconic Ultimate (High Noon) shares a name with the famous western film High Noon. Many of his sprays and quotes allude to Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Even McCree's gameplay style – quick draws, six shooter revolver – draws from the fighting style of Western gunslingers (as depicted in classic Westerns, the same shooting style mercilessly mocked in films like Unforgiven).

None of this is particularly surprising. Blizzard clearly drew from various genre films to create the Overwatch world. It makes sense that they'd be inspired by westerns, one of the biggest genres during the 50s and 60s, in order to create a diverse, incredible world for gamers to explore.

Tracer is the Classic Superhero

Overwatch's speedy mascot Lena Oxton has everything in common with a classic DC and Marvel superhero from the 1950s and 60s. You have a young, energetic character caught in a science experiment, only to become a superhero with crazy awesome powers.

She shares the most in common with both The Flash and the Fantastic Four. Like the Flash, she has incredible speedy powers and can dislocate herself in time, if need be. However, flying an experimental aircraft, only to encounter a physics breaking accident – that's the origin of Marvel Comic's first family: the Fantastic Four.

Ape Shall Not Kill Ape

Winston is a super-intelligent ape.

This is a classic science fiction trope that Blizzard drew from. Overwatch is hardly the first work of fiction to bring in intelligent apes, but it is clear that certain movies and books inspired Overwatch's Winston.

While it is not the first example, Planet of the Apes is one of the most popular and famous works of fiction featuring intelligent apes. This ties in with the over-arching theme with many of the Overwatch characters, who drew inspiration from genre stories from the 50s and 60s.

But Winston bares more similarity to the apes of DC Comics, particularly Flash enemy Gorilla Grodd. This is mainly due to the hyper intelligence, refined speaking style, affinity with weapons, and ability to assemble metahumans to his side to pursue objectives. And, like Gorilla Grodd, Winston is inseparable from a speedster superhero-type.

And, like the DC apes, Winston is part of a society of super apes who form their own colony run by apes. Only this colony is on the moon.

The only real difference is that Winston is a genuinely cool ape, while Gorilla Grodd is something of a megalomaniac.

Overwatch's Australia is Basically Mad Max

In Overwatch, Australia is a nuclear wasteland. Two of the main characters, Junkrat and Roadhog, are both raiders who make their living riding around the wasteland of Australia (and are bffs for life).

While the idea of Australia being a nuclear wasteland may disturb many Australians (though it might make the continent slightly less dangerous for human beings), Blizzard clearly drew from the classic science fiction post-apocalypse film series Mad Max for inspiration. Both see similar futures for Australia, though Mad Max never really establishes if anywhere beyond Australia has gone to Hell (though it all likely has), and is notoriously inconsistent about how much of the world has been ravaged by war.

Even Roadhog and Junkrat's character designs draw from Mad Max (specifically the second film, The Road Warrior), with Roadhog resembling Lord Humongus in both his physical stature and his typical attire (though they wear different masks, obviously), and Junkrat resembling the nameless Gyro Captain. Even their aesthetic and weapons are similar, with Junkrat assembling pieces of junk to make big explosions, and Roadhog being something of a road-warrior himself, being large and in-charge.

The similarities are a little too similar to dismiss outright.

Everything About Mei Comes Out of a Horror Movie

Depending on who you ask, Mei is either one of the cutest Overwatch characters or secretly its most nightmarish. For some reason, people find the idea of a curvy scientist who hasn't aged in a decade who smiles as she slowly freezes you before driving an icicle through your skull creepy.

But those of you who fear Mei, keep in mind that Blizzard has clearly drawn a lot from science fiction horror films when coming up with this character.

First and foremost, she is an Antarctic scientist who is left frozen following a scientific disaster. This is similar to Kurt Russel's character in John Carpenter's remake of The Thing. It is interesting to note that Kurt Russel's character in that film wields a flamethrower, the antithesis to Mei's ice gun. Furthermore, the Eco-Point: Antarctica stage is designed in a similar aesthetic to the Antarctic base in The Thing.

Additionally, Mei is kept in cryostasis for a prolonged period following the disaster, waking up years after her scheduled wake-up time to realize that her fellow scientists did not survive cryostasis, leaving her the sole survivor of a scientific expedition. This is similar to both James Cameron's Aliens, where Sigourney Weaver's Ripley spends fifty years in cryostasis, and Alien 3, where Ripley wakes up to find all the people she traveled with in cryostasis dead.

Clearly, Blizzard was inspired by various books, movies, and games when making Overwatch.

While it's possible that all of these are coincidences, it seems too peculiar for them not to be.