Overwatch 2 heroes appear to be child soldiers after “canon ages” lore reveal

Blizzard released a bunch of new information about the exact age of every hero in the game, and while the lore update is welcome, it’s got some of us scratching our heads about when these characters started fighting.

There’s a lot of playable characters in this game. You’ve got more than thirty people running around in your lore, each of them a different age, so it’s only natural that not all the pieces are going to line up perfectly, especially when new characters are added to a constantly evolving story.

But this also means that when it comes to lore, wires are going to get crossed, and with Blizzard’s recent update on the canonical age and birthday of every hero in the game, a whole heap of them got crossed at once, because it seems to imply that several characters were barely teenagers when they joined militaries and started fighting.

Overwatch 2 heroes could have started fighting as teenagers

Here’s the issue. Overwatch’s “present-day” takes place a couple of decades after an event called the Omnic Crisis, which is when most of the older heroes (Reinhardt, Soldier: 76, and Ana) first earned their stripes, which explains why they’re so grizzled and used to combat. These guys are all in their 60s, so it’d make sense they fought in the crisis during their prime.

Blizzard Entertainment

The problem starts when you look at characters like Sojourn, who also fought in the first Omnic Crisis. The new lore says she’s 47, which one sleuth figured out would make her 19 at the time of the Crisis. A little young to be a seasoned commander, maybe, but not impossible.

However, her lore also states that she’d been in the Canadian military for four years before the Crisis began, and was already a captain when it started. Does Canada really let 15-year-olds sign up to the army?

Similarly, Mercy’s age of 39 would have made her around 14 when she joined Overwatch, and despite being a medical prodigy, I just can’t see her leading the medical team at such a young age.

Other problems, like Kiriko growing up with the Shimada brothers despite being about twenty years younger than them, have also been highlighted by confused players. Let’s hope some clarification arrives soon.