Elon Musk may well exist in Overwatch 2, thanks to the tiniest of nods to the business magnate and industrial designer in a snapshot of the upcoming game.
Announced in 2019, Overwatch 2 is still without an officially confirmed window for its release, though through tidbits learned in investor calls, it's imagined that it will arrive in 2022. Players of Overwatch won't be left behind, as the games will possess a "shared multiplayer environment" so that the community can compete in its PvP modes and hold onto their unlocked cosmetics. In fact, director Jeff Kaplan anticipates that Overwatch and Overwatch 2 will be stitched together into one coherent product, owing to possible engine conflicts throwing a spanner into that "shared" space. However, as shown off last night at the start of BlizzCon 2021, there's a lot of new content for players to look forward to, including two new maps.
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Actually, all existing maps will be expanded to allow for the story campaign that Overwatch 2 offers. The background of the world of Overwatch tends to be... well... in the background, whereas these PvE elements will bring it to the fore, which is brilliant news for fans of the animated shorts and the comics. In a panel with a number of developers on the Overwatch 2 team, they ran through (figuratively) the new Rome and New York City maps. Out of the two, I think I prefer the Rome one - it cleverly merges the ornate ruins of statues with pale blue holograms of what they would have looked like when they were built. I love that sort of thing. But, Forbes pointed out something small in the New York City map, and it adds a wrinkle in the Overwatch 2 lore.
Firstly, let's remember that the game is set in the 2070s, ish. In Grand Central Station, it shows that one of the futuristic transport options to the denizens of the Big Apple is a "luxury hyperloop" between here and Chicago. Not only does it hint at a Chicago map, it also might mean that Elon Musk is in Overwatch. In some shape or form. Seven years ago, Musk published a technical paper describing and explaining the Hyperloop, which is a tubular train transit system that's "a cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table." Gosh, that makes me feel so safe. Musk released his Hyperloop Alpha as an open-source design, and a handful of companies have dedicated the billions and billions of dollars required to try and turn it into a reality. Perhaps, in a brightly coloured version of our own world in the 2070s, they were successful.
Really though, it's likely to be an inside joke between the developer and Musk, as he is a fan of the hero shooter. Last year, they even made rocket-powered turrets for his main, Torbjörn, after he asked that they improve the character's tactical viability. The centibillionaire is also confident that we're living in a simulation, like The Matrix or The Sims, and he's recently been working on a wireless implant that would allow chimpanzees to "play mind Pong with each other."
Featured Image Credit: Instagram (@elonmusk), Blizzard