From “A Clash of Kings”, an essay discussing perspective, unreliable narrators, “you the player” as an interactive storytelling element, and the motivations of Doomfist and Reaper.
“Which brings me…to ‘Perspective.’ One of the things we really like doing with Overwatch is playing with perspective. We utilize perspective when we analyze or when we tell stories about characters, what they’re thinking, what their goals are. And we have a lot of unreliable narrators. We want people to pay careful attention to what characters think about in particular situations. We want them to use their judgment and their knowledge of a character’s thoughts to come up with their own ideas about the universe.
“You the reader” or “You the audience” or “You the player” are not just a simple “witness” of these character interactions, or these events, or these stories. In nearly all of the shorts, comics, and events, “You the (blank)” are your own, separate, individual perspective.
And Overwatch “the larger story” knows that.
And plays upon it.
Reminder:
“Retribution” not only encourages you to explore all four “witness” perspective, but also engage reflexively with your own. This can be as varied as “so, how did hearing about McCree posing as a waiter make you feel?” to
“Which perspective do you trust? And why?”
Moira’s Origin video is deliberately designed to mislead you. Her Hero Profile – as all of the Hero Profiles – is specifically written to be vague enough to “guide your thinking” into the assumption that she joined Talon after she left Blackwatch. However, it is also just flexible enough to leave room for the interpretation that she was in Talon before she joined Blackwatch.
Hell, even the title of the event – “Retribution” – is a very deliberate play on words.
Is it Gabriel’s “Retribution” upon Talon, as the comic wants you to believe?
Or is it Moira’s retribution upon Blackwatch and Overwatch?
“We stand on the brink of a breakthrough in human evolution. I have dedicated my life to unraveling its secrets. I take risks that others would consider to be ‘unwise,’ for I do not share their caution. Overwatch held back the pace of scientific discovery for decades. They believed my methods were too radical… too controversial…
“And they tried…to silence me.
“…But there were others in the shadows, searching for ways to circumvent their rules. Freed from my shackles, the pace of our research hastened – together, we delved deeper into those areas forbidden by law, by morality…and by fear.
“New patrons emerged who possessed an appetite for my discoveries. And with this knowledge…what new world could we build?”
If you play “Retribution” again before this week is over, try ignoring McCree. The game wants you to believe his perspective. Just like “Searching”, it is actively trying to push you into following his “narration” of the events leading up to it, the mission itself, and the events in the aftermath.
The game is playing on your perspective. It knows that you read the “Retribution” comic. It knows that you go into the “Venice mission” expecting Gabriel Reyes to be “a good guy.” It knows that what “you the player” are interested in is seeing how this character:
“Becomes” Reaper.
And it does everything in its power to make you believe McCree’s perspective. It changes the opening narration to McCree’s description of the events. In the “standard” version of “Retribution,” McCree’s voicelines are the ones most frequently activated, and they are furious with Reyes. It closes the “mission” with another McCree narration, which – just like Moira’s Origin video – is deliberately designed to make you doubt Gabriel Reyes’ intentions and perspective.
The game is trying to trick you.
It is using literary, visual, and interactive “sleight of hand” to draw your attention to McCree – his perspective, his emotions, his words, his “story” of the event – and away from Gabriel’s own perspective:
And from Moira’s more hidden, more “masked” perspective.
As I said, it is an ambitious – arguably too ambitious – attempt at interactive, perspective-based story-telling. There is no “reliable, third-person omniscient narrator” here to “tell you the full and utter truth.” Hell, not even Junkenstein’s Revenge is free from “unreliable narrators”, as Reinhardt (the man “narrating” the “story”) often interjects with his own perspective or sense of humor. The “player” is left alone, without direct narrative guidance, in a story mode that is actively trying to mislead them from building their own informed, critical, analytical perspective.
And Overwatch relishes that.
Overwatch wants you to believe McCree. It wants you to play Retribution and “get upset” with Gabriel. It wants you to feel like Gabriel has somehow betrayed Blackwatch’s or Overwatch’s ethics, or its “purpose”, or its…anything.
But Gabriel himself tells both McCree and “you the player” that he himself sees Retribution as him doing what he has always done.
Moira: You did what needed to be done, Gabriel. Don’t apologize. Gabriel: I never have, and I don’t intend to start now. Someone has to be the one to get things done.
McCree: Is this what we’ve become, Gabriel? Gabriel: Blackwatch has always had one purpose: to do the real work of keeping the world safe. I thought you had the stomach for it. Looks like I was wrong.
Because Overwatch wants “you the player” to feel like a “hero” – to feel like you are the protagonist of these characters’ stories. It wants you to participate and engage with the world, the events, the plotlines, and the literal “video game” action of it in a perspective-based way.
And yes –
This has been confirmed by the Principal Software Engineer of Overwatch:
We always knew that Retribution’s ‘A to B’ was going to be dictated almost entirely by the narrative, because we really wanted to bring players into this crucial moment in Overwatch history that we’ve only really alluded to before: exposure of Blackwatch, the rift between McCree and Reyes, and how Reyes goes from being a key member of Overwatch to the antagonist we now know as Reaper. The story was there, and the Blackwatch characters were there. And crucially, the flow of the mission—this extended street fight where you’re trying to escape a city while all these enemies are trying to kill you—was there, too. That said, we realized we’d put ourselves into a tough spot: the Blackwatch team was three offense characters and a single support.
Our job was clear: since we had so many offense heroes, we had to make extra sure that the enemies we designed were fun to kill.
We made a ton of small but very deliberate choices like that in Retribution. As a designer, it’s easy to have mixed feelings talking about this kind of stuff—it sort of feels like you’re revealing a magic trick. Even when a moment is engineered, we want players want to feel like they discovered something on their own, because that’s when you feel the most badass—most like a hero.
PkCaramel 