Overwatch’s newest hero had a long journey ahead Monitor 2, at least from the perspective of when players first saw it – three and a half years ago, during the original game’s Storm Rising event – until its final release last week. Like many of Blizzard’s shooter heroes, new tank hero Ramattra is a collection of ideas that have been slow to come to fruition.
The hero’s long gestation is also the result of the Overwatch team’s desire to sow Easter eggs and hints of what’s to come, even if the payoff is in the years to come.
“It takes us a long time to create a hero on Overwatch actually,” art director Dion Sanders told Polygon in a recent interview. “Especially as we have more and more heroes, it takes a while.” But Ramattra was “pretty important to the ongoing narrative of the game,” Sanders said, noting “we have to, you know, release some when the time is right.”
Ramattra dates back to 2017, when Blizzard artists were designing Null Sector units. A lieutenant figure in this group, a figure resembling a monk holding a staff, stood out from the crowd, according to lead concept artist Qiu Fang. The sand-based powers of these Egyptian-inspired robots eventually evolved into nanites, which give Ramattra his powers.
Ramattra’s lengthy development was compounded by its complicated character, both in terms of gameplay mechanics and narrative design. Ramattra plays in two different guises – Omnic and Nemesis – bringing technical complications and double the work for Overwatch’s art team, akin to two-in-one heroes like D.Va and Ashe (and BOB).
Ramattra’s dual nature in matches Monitor 2 are a reflection of his personality, said lead hero designer Alec Dawson.
“When you look at him mechanically, you want to grasp this hero who has [two] his side, in terms of what he is willing to do to protect his people,” Dawson said. “[Ramattra] can be a bit quieter or reserved, and you see that with him putting on his shield barrier [and] spicy from afar. And then when he transforms, when he takes his Nemesis form, you see another side of him. You see some of that strength coming out – which he is actually capable of.
On paper, Ramattra’s abilities look scary, potentially meta-breaking. He can switch between two forms, giving him two sets of offensive and defensive abilities, he can pierce barriers, and his Ravenous Vortex ability will disrupt flying enemies like Pharah, Echo, and Mercy. It pairs well with a Lucio or Kiriko which can give it a burst of speed. But he’s also very susceptible to counters like Ana’s sleep dart or being flanked in the form of Nemesis. Using it effectively takes skill.
“With Ramattra gameplay, we really focus on certain skill elements, [like] when to capitalize and turn the tide of the battle,” Dawson said. “There’s a lot of focus on turning into Nemesis, advancing into the enemy backline and making sure it’s all [happening at] the good moment. You have a lot at your disposal, but the focus is always on the exact moment of transformation, the exact moment of engagement with your entire team, and being that leader in front.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment
Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, lead narrative designer and writer for Overwatch, said his writing for Ramattra’s story and the ongoing narrative comes “from the kind of fascination I’ve had in my career with the interactions between intelligence artificial and human”, subjects he explored in desert 3, Torment: Tides of Numeneraand Horizon Zero Dawn.
“You have this character that was created to hunt and ultimately kill humans in the Omnic Crisis, that was his sole purpose,” Jurgens-Fyhrie said. “He realized when he woke up, so to speak, in New York and was forced to face […] what he had done during the Omnic Crisis – basically, he had driven countless omnics to their deaths. They’re Omnics who would never experience consciousness like him, and that’s something that drives him. It’s something that haunts him. »
As said in a recently released a new “Reflections” for Ramattra, the Omnic Ravager travels to Shambali to learn from the monk Mondatta, but experiences something of a second awakening. “He wanted to find his place in the world, to answer these questions as What is my goal ?“ Jurgens-Fyhrie said, “but also to understand how could he atone? How could he make the world better for the Omnics, who are a finite race? We’ve seen him try, and we’ve seen the world abandon him. Not only is humanity not making the same effort from his point of view, but a lot of Ravagers – his Omnic model type – are dead. So we have someone who is no longer trying to make peace with humanity. He thinks it’s impossible. And in fact, he thinks it’s dangerous to seek peace with humanity.
Image: Sylvain Decaux/Blizzard Entertainment
Sanders said players shouldn’t think of Ramattra as a villain, but as an “antagonist”. Jurgens-Fyhrie added that players might find themselves philosophically ok with the Omnic responsible for all this death and destruction.
Players will gain additional details about Ramattra’s backstory and personality from his interactions with fellow Omnic Zenyatta – and fellow engineer Wrecking Ball – in Monitor 2, and players will be able to absorb part of the narrative path from Ramattra to Shambali as they climb the map of the same name. But Jurgens-Fyhrie said Blizzard “isn’t done telling the story of Ramattra and Zenyatta from afar.”
As for what’s next Monitor 2 heroes, Jurgens-Fyhrie noted that “we’ve said before that we’re teasing a future hero based on stuff in [Esperança, the Portugal-set map]and hinted at voice lines in the game’s New York map containing clues. Hopefully for Monitor 2 players hungry for more heroes to play, they won’t take as long to come as Ramattra.
