Gaming industry powerhouse Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch is known for its deep lore, and the community's passion for conspiracy theory and digging up logs for hints on upcoming heroes, maps, and content in general. The game's official Twitter account shared a personal log from Dr. Mina Liao.
Who is Dr. Mina Liao you might ask? Well, we first heard about her back in May 2016, and was introduced as one of the six founding members of Overwatch. Since then, we never really heard more about her till today. The log itself talks about Liao's Athena prototype working successfully, and goes on to talk more about artificial life and the concept of its true existence in the universe. All these could be taken as hints we might eventually see Dr. Mina Liao added to Overwatch's roster, or considering the futuristic nature and hints of artificial life throughout the log, Echo deserves a shout. The character was showcased briefly during Overwatch 2's trailer and has long been teased, but who knows? Perhaps this finally means Echo will be released, or it could all be a distraction from a completely different type of content coming the players' way.
After all these years, it feels good to finally get to focus on the research that I am truly passionate about. The Athena prototype has been deemed a success, so much so that Jack's finally agreed to authorize my new project, [imitating Jack] "Pending future evaluation." And the timing couldn't be better. People are as scared of omnics as ever, even at a time they seem more human than ever. Those omnic monks in Nepal stating that they believe that they possess souls, just as we do, and just the other day I need a story about manufacturing omnics in London walking off the line claiming they "heard the music" and wanting to search for meaning in life.
Why can't we see that artificial life is still fundamentally life? Instead, we're going the opposite direction. Violence against omnics is on the rise, and even more governments are cracking down on their rights and freedoms. I can only hope that this project can change the conversation: that people can understand that the potential of artificial life is so much greater than whatever we have to gain by treating them as our property, or our servants. There is still so much to do, but I have to try to show the world a better way, before it's too late.
What do you think the latest personal log shared by Blizzard means to Overwatch?
