Highlights
- Overwatch 2's short story "Shockwaves" follows Sojourn as she defends her home city of Toronto from the invading Null Sector forces, showcasing her combat skills and tactical knowledge gained from her time as a Canadian Army soldier and Overwatch agent.
- The story depicts the violence of the Null Sector invasion in a grisly manner, describing bodies hurtling onto buildings and civilians being executed en masse, highlighting the ruthlessness of the enemy troops.
- Sojourn, while wishing for the help of her Overwatch teammates, pushes forward to rescue as many people as she can and ensure their evacuation to safety, vowing to see the war through to the end and defend her hometown.
In true Blizzard fashion, the Overwatch franchise has a unique and exciting lore told across different mediums like comic books, videos, and short stories. Overwatch 2 and its predecessor primarily relied on these alternative forms of media for their lore releases because it didn’t have lore-focused campaigns until the recently launched story missions. The franchise continues to do so with its latest Overwatch 2 short story: Shockwaves by Brandon Easton.
Shockwaves puts the reader in the heat of battle with Sojourn, as she fights off the Null Sector forces invading her home city of Toronto. The book seems to follow the events of her Calling animated short, which showed the retired captain getting a visit from a former colleague named Tremblay. Tremblay now works for a government intelligence agency called CSIS, and he’s asking his old superior if she was the vigilante involved in one of their recent raids. Just as Sojourn found out, however, Null Sector ships started appearing overhead. Like the elite Overwatch operative she is, Sojourn suited up and sprung into action within seconds. Tremblay then postpones her arrest and instead follows his old captain’s lead in defending their hometown.
Sojourn Holds the Fort in Overwatch 2’s Shockwaves
Shockwaves showcases not just Sojourn’s abilities, but also her tactical knowledge and combat skills that she gained in her experience as a Canadian Army soldier and Overwatch agent. The first few paragraphs show her bracing an impact from a blast, which she quickly recovered from thanks to her cybernetic enhancements. Despite their earlier reunion, she lost contact with Tremblay, as the recent explosion may have damaged her communications unit. It could be that her former colleague was hurt by the blast as well. She had no time to worry, as a Null Sector gunner dropped smack dab in the middle of a busy intersection. The Canadian army, emergency forces, and police arrived just in time to help her with the threat.
Sojourn, like the true leader she is, instructed all the light infantry troops to provide covering fire. She instructed troops with energy weapons and heavy artillery to target the robot’s cannons while she distracted it. She dealt the final blow, shooting the bot’s central assembly, causing it to explode. After dealing with the threat, she turned her attention to helping the city’s evacuation efforts.
Overwatch 2’s Shockwaves Short Story Gives Insight on Null Sector Troops and Their Ruthlessness
The short story format allows for more grisly depictions of the violence surrounding the Null Sector invasion in Overwatch 2 since there are no graphic representations of the gore. The story described Sojourn’s allies being tossed into the sky like confetti, with their bodies hurtling onto buildings. Their numbers dwindled from a force of more than 100 troops down to just 20. The text also detailed Nulltroopers backing civilians into canyons and executing them en masse.
Sojourn observed that there were new types of troops coming out of Null Sector's ships that she hadn't seen before. The most imposing example is the heavily armored tank with a rhino-like horn on its head. These updated models caused so much bloodshed that Sojourn regretted having cybernetically enhanced eyesight, which just provided a more visceral definition of the tragedy. She also rescued two children frozen from the sight of a cafe exploding in front of them. Sojourn soon learned that their parents were inside the building that Null Sector troops bombed.
It was in these traumatic moments that Sojourn wished that her Overwatch compatriots, like Winston, were there to help her out. However, she also recognized that the organization disbanded for a good reason. She pushed forward and rescued every human and omnic she could, ensuring that they got to the safety of the ferries that would evacuate them from Toronto. Sojourn felt a sigh of relief when she heard the horns of the boats leaving the city, but she knew her job was far from done. Easton aptly ends the story by saying that Sojourn intends to see this war to the end, even if it means that she will be the last one standing in defense of her hometown.
Overwatch 2 is available now on the Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.