Overwatch 2 heroes want Sigma to put on shoes

It Overwatch 2 narrative team has added 25,000 new voice lines to the game, some of which are described by writers as “reactive” — voice lines pulled from a complex system designed to reward players in rare or absurd moments.

Overwatch 2 players on social media are starting to notice these voice lines spread throughout the game’s ongoing beta period. Voice lines can be used to recreate complex Overwatch scenes or for situations that are extremely specific. Gavin Jurgens–Fyhrie and Justin Groot, narrative designers, say that some voice lines include responses to specific details. Overwatch 2 heroes’ skins.

Sigma is one. Overwatch’s most contentious heroes, for one specific reason: He doesn’t wear shoes in his default skin. This was one of the most talked-about topics when the hero was released. He’s got full armor and… bare feet. Overwatch’s development team added a nod to those bewildered players with some new voice lines in Overwatch 2 — but whether players ever hear them will depend on a lot of factors, including whether they’re wearing a Sigma skin with or without shoes.

“It started from a conversation where Baptiste commented on Sigma not having shoes and [narrative designer] Miranda [Moyer] pointed out it’s weird if you’re wearing a skin that has shoes when it says this line.”

Groot stated that he entered the country to do so. Overwatch 2’s The system and assigned every Sigma skin a shoe or not tag, which enabled the team to include that information into their tangled voice-over system. That’s one of the criteria the system looks for when pulling voice lines. Say you’re playing Widowmaker and you shoot a shoeless Sigma: “Someone please get him some shoes,” she’ll quip.

Sigma also has lines that are based on his feet. One line, for instance, triggers if you’re playing Sigma and get a kill streak: “Superlative arch support.”

“I don’t want to keep banging away at the feet thing, but it is pretty great that this team can go to the rest of the Overwatch team and say, ‘We have this very critical idea for shoe-based lines,’ and the Overwatch engineers will go, ‘Yes, that’s vital. Let’s do that.’”

Reactive voice lines can also be used to describe characters, locations, situations, or moves. It’s all part of the 10-person narrative team’s goal to make voice lines feel like a reward for doing something cool or weird — a way for the game to recognize and celebrate the player. The team wanted players to feel like the voice lines feature characters reacting not just to predictable scenarios, but that the game’s characters truly recognized what the player was specifically doing in that moment.

“When writing reactive lines, we can take into account more than 50 criteria; for example, ‘target is invisible,’ or ‘target is in Sigma ult,’ or ‘You are in Sigma ult,” Groot said. “We can also combine these criteria to write lines for even more specific situations.” Stuff like when an ulting Soldier: 76 kills another ulting Soldier: 76, Ana sleep-darting a charging Reinhardt, or Sigma killing Widowmaker immediately after she uses her grappling hook.

Fans who are devoted to Overwatch will appreciate a new piece of lore or detail about a character.

“We really wanted to chase that feeling and celebrate players as much as possible for different accomplishments they can have in Overwatch,” Groot said.

[Disclosure: This article’s author previously worked at The Meta with Justin Groot.]