Overwatch: What You Left Behind

Overwatch Short Stories

by Alyssa Wong

Genres: Video Games, Short Stories, Science Fiction

27 pages, ebook

First published June 17, 2019

About the author

Alyssa Wong studies fiction in Raleigh, NC, and really, really likes crows. She was a finalist for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her story, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story and the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her work has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Tor.com, among others.

Reviews

[Kafia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing in these stories keeps on improving. More engaging than I found a lot of the comics
Mauga is so interesting, i hope we see him in overwatch 2

[Eyla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting story despite how short it had to be, always here for more Baptiste content!! Can't play him for shit despite how many times I've tried but I love his character. I hope we get to see more of him in Mercy's short story, which I'm hoping to read next month!! Also every time I think about Overwatch, I just get overwhelmed with how much I want the second game. I just want to play storymode guys, so bad.

[Luc Forsyth · Rating 3 out of 5]

OOOHHH VERY FUN!!!! but don’t you hate when you find yourself becoming enamoured with a character + their backstory only to remember this story came out 5 YEARS AGO. with next to zero follow-up. it does not go anywhere. it makes me insane. i’m really mad about it but this does such a good job of immediately establishing his character and his relationship / duty to his community and GOSH i am so mad at blizzard. always and forever x

[gumbella · Rating 5 out of 5]

this fandom doesn't appreciate baptiste enough :sob:

[helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

these short stories are a delight.

again, blizzard gifted us with another well-written story, this time about the new hero baptiste.
i was surprised to find a very rounded character in baptiste, considering he’s a new hero in the game and i haven’t seen much about him. he joined talon in the past, but didn’t agree with their methods because he was actually a good person. but he has killed in the name of others and has conflicted feelings about it.
but there was something that made me lower my rating to 4 stars: the complete lack of explanation about what the hell talon even is. it’s been 16 comics, 11 animated shorts, 2 short stories and, of course, the game per se, and i still don’t know what talon even wants. i know their methods are brutal and ruthless, but what are their goals? do they like omnics? why do they even care that a person has too much power over the medicine industry and, because of that, the civilians are suffering with the lack of supplies? they care about people so are they actually good????? i literally don’t understand talon and it pisses me off. i think this short story about an ex-talon agent would be the perfect opportunity to set things right but they didn’t.
other than that, the short story is very good and i recommend it immensely to everyone that loves overwatch lore.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good amount of action mixed with tension. Baptiste's backstory makes him a really interesting character, and the secondary characters are fun and interesting as well!