Creating a compelling villain can be one of the most difficult challenges a fiction writer can face. They have to be powerful, but not insurmountable. They have to be ominous without being annoying. They should be relatable without being admirable. The balance is incredibly tricky, butBlizzardseems to have found that balance with Ramattra.
Poised to be a major player inOverwatch 2’s upcoming story campaign, Ramattra is the leader of Null Sector, a faction of rebellious omnics who want equality with — and possibly dominance over — the humans that created them.Overwatch’s bright interpretation of our future is riddled with dark undertones of corruption and intolerance, and the latter is never more prevalent than with how omnics are treated by many humans.
The key is to remember that omnics aren’t just robots; they’re true AIs who have just as much emotion and self-awareness as humans. Many in the Overwatch universe consider them to have a soul. The Shambali in particular promote this idea. These monks have taught and included many of Overwatch’s most well-known characters, such as Genji and Zenyatta — and yes, Ramattra.
There was a time when Ramattra tried to be peaceful with humans. After fighting against them in the Omnic Crisis 20 years before the events of the game, Ramattra joined the Shambali monks and strived for peace. All he’d known was war, having been built during the Crisis by its perpetrator, Anubis. He’d seen the cruelty of humans basically since the day of his creation, but he still found his way to the peaceful monks high in the mountains.
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Ramattra spent years practicing their ideals and even brought Zenyatta into the fold of the monastery. The two became fast friends and often debated the place of omnics in the world, and their path to peace and unity with humanity. But Ramattra continued to see his people being treated as mere machines by humans, and he started to believe the pacifist ways being taught at the monetary just weren’t working. While he was up on that mountain meditating, there was violence in the streets. Humans were attacking and killing his people for no reason apart from the simple fact that omnics were different, and he couldn’t stand for it any longer. So he would speak to them in alanguage they understood: violence.
Zenyatta tried to convince him to be patient. He still believed that peace with humanity was possible, but Ramattra didn’t listen and left the monastery behind. He traveled the world and searched for those among his people who had experienced the most oppression under the hateful humans. His charisma and leadership skills were enough to draw many to him. All omnics could see how dedicated he was to protecting them and ensuring humanity’s days of suppression would come to an end.
While there’s no questioning his motives, Ramattra’s methods are what categorize him as a villain. He eventually used his power and influence to create Null Sector, a terrorist organization dedicated to waging war on humans. He intended to use humanity’s tactics against them, and if it meant innocent civilians got caught in the crossfire, so be it. It even looks like he’ll be willing to work alongside Doomfist and Talon — though I wonder how that will work considering that Talon’s ownWidowmaker sniped the Shambali’s leader, Mondatta.
Fans have drawn many parallels between the Zenyatta/Ramattra dynamic and X-Men’s Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto — and rightfully so. In X-Men, Xavier believes peace is possible between his people (the mutants) and regular humans. But mutants are consistently viewed with suspicion and face oppression and violence in that world. Conversely, Magneto’s philosophy is to take a more heavy-handed approach with regular humans, and he wages a war against them in a vengeful fury over the treatment of mutantkind.
Professor X and Magneto were in turn inspired by real-life figureheads of the American Civil Rights Movement: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. MLK was known for promoting nonviolence, justice, and coexistence in pursuit of equal rights. Malcolm X didn’t believe these methods were effective and had notably more controversial opinions on how society should be organized.
Some of the best fiction out there draws inspiration from real-life, and it can teach us about ourselves in unexpected ways. While playing Overwatch — running around in that colorful and cartoony world, while shooting gorillas and robots — it might be hard to find anything that remotely ties back to real-life. But there are lessons to be learned for those who are looking. The themes of heroism, sacrifice, tolerance and unity run deep, and it will be interesting to see how they’re explored in the story campaign. But it looks like we may get to see the other side of that coin through Ramattra. Due to their relevance, I hope we get to explore those darker themes of inequality, tribulation, and vengeance.
It would have been easy to launch a campaign with yet another cookie-cutter villain. Shooter games don’t often feel the need to have a bad guy with a motivation any more complex than wanting power or wealth. Anything beyond that often takes a backseat to the explosions and testosterone-fueled cutscenes. But those villains don’t often end up being as memorable as those with more complex motivations, like Andrew Ryan, GLaDOS, or Saren Arterius
Overwatch has a prime opportunity to be different. We’ve been waiting a long time for this series to incorporate more storytelling into the games themselves, and with a cast of interesting characters, it needs to have compelling villains we love to hate. Having Ramattra as the biggest bad in the story is the right move, because he’s one we can sympathize with. The showdown between Overwatch and Null Sector is coming, and one thing we know for sure: Ramattra isn’t going to go easy on us.
