Overwatch’s Omnic Oppression Justified

You see that guy on the header? Bastion from Overwatch?

If you played any of the betas, you’ve experienced Bastion stealing the play of the game. If you haven’t, here’s a taste of what you’ll get. A stream of shots shredding through an entire team of heroes in five seconds. Chewing up squishy characters like Tracer. Instantly turning around to Reaper ambushes and blasting their black-clad assailants away before they even get a chance to strike.

I feel a pang of guilt whenever I have to switch to Bastion to stop an advance. The enemy steadily creeping forward with the payload as I set up shop atop an old gas station. I wait for the truck to turn the corner, finger idly teasing the trigger. I see the Reinhardt. I see the Mercy. I see Mcree — thank God I’m out of range for a flashbang. I wait for the rest of their team to get in sight. Then I pull.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

And their hard won push is gone in an instant. I’m cringing as I watch my play of the game, and I’m hanging my head in shame as both teams refuse to commend me afterwards.

If you don’t play Bastion, you probably hate him.

If you play Bastion, you’ve been the recipient of hatred. You might even hate yourself a bit for it, like I do when I take up the Omnic mantle.

Where am I going with this? Here’s a bit of Bastion’s backstory, taken from the Overwatch wiki.

“Originally created for peacekeeping purposes, Bastion robot units possessed the unique ability to rapidly reconfigure themselves into an assault-cannon mode. But during the Omnic Crisis, they were turned against their human makers, forming the bulk of the Omnics’ rebel army. Following the resolution of the crisis, nearly all of them were destroyed or disassembled. To this day, Bastion units still symbolize the horrors of the conflict.”

In Overwatch, you just have to face a single Bastion unit. Six if you’re particularly unlucky. Back in the day there were swarms of these things turning into little tanks or transforming into bullet-based meat grinders.

So when you find yourself cursing Bastion players after you turn a corner and get mowed down unexpectedly, imagine that for veterans of the Omnic Crisis, where Bastions were the basic infantry of their enemy. They didn’t get to respawn though.