• Symmetra and Lucio are actually on opposite sides. Lucio is a freedom fighter who’s working against the company that Symmetra works for. I’m not fucking kidding. They’re enemies, guys. 
  
  
• Genji and Hanzo are brothers, and are both part of a clan that was most famous for being criminals.
  
  
• I know, right? Like, you wouldn’t expect it from them. but it true. they were part of a crime family.
  
  
• Genji was actually a playboy who hated responsibility. So I hope that ruins everyone’s stereotypical first impressions of him. 
  
  
• On that note, Hanzo had to kill Genji because something something dead weight. Genji survived because Mercy turned him into a cyborg. 
  
  
• Pharah, D.Va, and Zarya were never part of Overwatch. they’re just members of the armies for their respective nations. 
  
  
• Pharah really wanted to get in Overwatch tho. She was so hyped for that. Unfortunately, Overwatch dieded before she could. 
  
  
• also, she’s not part of the Egyptian army anymore, she’s working for a private company in order to defend this computer in Giza. 
  
  
• BTW, D.Va’s backstory is LITERALLY, “a giant fucking [robot] monster is attacking! we need to get professional gamers in these mechs so they can kick kaiju ass and save the nation!”
  
  
• Winston saved Tracer’s ass. He’s the reason she can still walk around in the meatspace without randomly blinking out of existence for months at a time. 
  
  
• Reinhardt is aggressively Lawful Good. Mercy is aggressively Pacifist. Torbjorn is primarily driven by Really Not Wanting Folk To Touch His Shit. 
  
  
• Widowmaker’s skin is blue because her circulation is really terrible. I wish I was kidding, but no. She’s literally a terrorist vampire. I’m sorry, guys.
  
  
• Bastion was a robot that fought in this big terrifying Robot Uprising. Its combat programming is busted, so now it’s just rlly hyped about nature. that’s why it’s always surrounded by birds n shit. 
  
  
• Torbjorn predicted the Robot Uprising before it happened. He distrusts sentient bots. For good reason. 
  
  
• Zenyatta wasn’t part of that robot uprising but it was part of a bunch of robots that went in the mountains to seek enlightenment. They became Enlightened Robot Monks. 
  
  
• That robot who was in the cutscene with Tracer and Widowmaker wasn’t Zenyatta. that was Mondatta, who was leading the Enlightened Robot Monks at the time. Zenyatta actually disagreed with Mondatta’s methods, and went off on his own in order to help the people of the world on a more personal level.
   
• Also, Zenyatta helped Genji come to terms with his cyborg body.
  
  
• Junkrat and Roadhog are from Australia. FYI, Australia had a Robot Crisis and turned into literally the Mad Max apocalypse. That explains a lot, honestly. 
  
  
• Mei was researching global warming in Antarctica. Her station got cut off from the outside world and she was forced to freeze herself in order to survive. So that’s why she’s all ice-y. She’s literally trying to stop global warming. 
  
  
• Soldier 76 is pretty much just a whistleblower. He’s trying to unravel the conspiracy that led to the demise of Overwatch. 
  
  
• Finally, Reaper. 
• Reaper is apparently trying to kill everyone who ever worked for Overwatch. 
• Also we know fucking nothing about him, and its kinda terrifying. 

We know a lot about Reaper actually. He was this scumbag named Gabriel Reyes, working for Overwatch black ops and getting upset over not being put in charge of the whole organization. He used to be friends with Morrisson (soldier 76) but when Morrisson got promoted instead of him, he basically called it quits and blew up a building on top of both of them, which was kind of the final nail in the coffin for Overwatch.

Now he works for some terror group named Talon and wears the mask of Reaper and is all shadowy and shit because apparently he wasn’t edgymetalgoth enough in the first place

• iirc after leaving Overwatch, Gabriel Reyes aka Reaper was altered on a biological level, kinda like Tracer was but purposely.  That’s why he can teleport and why he literally turns into a shadow sometimes.  It’s not so much for edge as it is for optimizing his job an assassin.  Not sure what the mask is about but could just be a personal touch lol.  Could be a callback to the Deadlock Gang?

• Jesse McCree was originally part of the Deadlock Gang and joined Overwatch’s black ops unit where he and Reyes worked together.  According to their banter in the spawn points, Reyes taught McCree everything he knows (presumably about covert ops - McCree was already a deadly marksman, though Reyes might’ve taught him some new things).  They no longer see eye-to-eye.

• Widowmaker, formerly Amilie Lacroix, is a pretty sad character tbh she used to be married to a man in Overwatch who tried to destroy the Talon organization.  After the organization failed to kill him numerous times they kidnapped his wife instead and conditioned her into a sleeper agent before returning her unharmed and unaware.  Soon after, she killed her husband as he slept, thus fulfilling the job for Talon.  She obediently returned to Talon where they further altered her mind and body into a covert weapon.  Her heart was permanently slowed, turning her skin blue.