Overwatch is looking towards its past with some new lore about Torbjörn according to a Story Update posted on the game's official website.
Though the general pace of plot progression could be regarded as a bit slow, the writers behind Overwatch nonetheless make an effort to nudge things forward every now and again. This time around, we're taking a look into the past with an old mission surrounding Ana, Reinhardt, Torbjörn, and a fourth individual by the name of Private First Class Emre Sarioglu. An after-action report from an Overwatch operation named "White Dome" was released on the game's Twitter.
https://twitter.com/PlayOverwatch/status/966840037093523456
In this fictional mission, we learn that Reinhardt, Torb, and Ana were joined by PFC Sarioglu in a mission to combat Omnics in Istanbul, Turkey. The battle resulted in serious injury to our favorite turret-building tinkerer. The aftermath of the battle was later explained in a letter to his wife. Torbjörn downplays the seriousness of his injuries and credits Reinhardt with having saved his life, going as far as to promise the honor of naming his future daughter. While Torb made the statement in jest, Reinhardt took him at his word quite seriously. It was later revealed that Torbjörn had been considering making Reinhardt the godfather of the girl anyway.
Going by what we know from the game's current story, the letter lays out some hints to the relationship between Reinhardt and Brigitte, the daughter of Torbjörn who travels with him in his personal crusade to fight injustice around the world. She was featured in the animated short Honor and Glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQfk5HykiEk
Though we can't be certain about the exact timeline, the pieces line up nicely for explaining the relationship between Reinhardt and Brigitte. There's still the chance that the letter could be referring to one of Torb's many other children, several of which are girls.
As for Emre Sarioglu, it stands to reason that this is our first hint for Hero 27. Overwatch Game Director Jeff Kaplan all but confirmed it as such with a forum post that preceded the release of the tweet regarding Operation White Dome. The team of four had a tank, defense hero, and healer; this makes for good odds that Hero 27 will be somewhere in the DPS category. However, Ana had previously been a combat sniper rather than a healer, and it's entirely possible that PFC Sarioglu is himself a combat medic. Given that Blizz has maintained a somewhat regular schedule of hero releases and Orisa launched in March of last year, we're likely to hear some more substantial details soon.
What do you think about the new bits of lore that have been released for Overwatch? What do you think PFC Emre Sarioglu will be like as a hero? Let us know in the comments below!
