Overwatch helped maintain peace, inspiring an era of exploration, innovation, and discovery. Many of their agents continued in service, while others, like Genji Shimada, left to follow their own path.

In India, the Vishkar Corporation developed a “radical” and revolutionary technology called hard-light. This technology allowed Vishkar to create physical objects with light. To further development, the corporation developed the Architech Academy to find and train “architechs” to create world-changing creations.

Among Vishkar’s best architechs was Satya Vaswani. Identified in her youth as a potential architech candidate, Vishkar took Vaswani from her poor upbringing and trained her to become its biggest assets. Vaswani was one of the lead architechs of Utopea, an entire city made out of hard-light. Realizing her true potential, the Vishkar Corporation gave her the codename “Symmetra” and sent her on missions to expand its influence around the world.

To help rebuild Brazil after the Omnic Crisis, the Vishkar Corporation brought its technology to Rio de Janeiro. Unfortunately, its initially altruistic efforts gave way to a more controlling side, enforcing harsh rules and abusing Rio's citizens for hard labor. Brazilian DJ and musician Lúcio Correia dos Santos wasn’t having any of this. A local legend in his own right, he decided to take the fight to Vishkar himself. After stealing some of its technology and modifying them into weapons, he fought off Vishkar, turning him into a celebrity almost overnight. His bravery catapulted his career and the former hometown DJ is now filling stadiums around the world.

In Korea, a unique class of remote MEKA drones held the line across Southeast Asia during a separate omnic invasion. Eventually the omnics changed tactics, and disabled Korean mobile communications. Unable to control its MEKA, South Korea turned to its professional gamers to stop the threat. Among them was Hana Song, aka D.Va. She was a world champion StarCraft player and used her gaming skills to pilot her MEKA with ruthless efficiency. She was known for livestreaming her encounters to her fans.

In the wake of the Omnic Crisis, the world decided to give omnics safe refuge in the Australian Outback. Unfortunately, the Outback was inhabited by small pockets of Australians who did not take kindly to their new neighbors. They formed the Australian Liberation Front to fight back, destroying Australia's omnium facility and irradiating most of the Outback. Among the destruction, two notable criminals, Junkrat and Roadhog, began making names for themselves.

A group of omnics created the Shambali to bring humans and omnics together again. They believe that omnics possess a soul and want to reunite the world through harmony between humans and omnics. Led by Tekhartha Mondatta, the Shambali gained prominence throughout the world. One of their followers, Zenyatta, eventually left to follow his own path. He decided to focus less on dogmatic teaching and and more on the interpersonal relationships between humans and omnics.

Genji and Hanzo were both sons in the Shimada crime family. After Genji had a falling out with the family, older brother Hanzo was ordered to kill his younger brother. On the verge of death, Genji was found by Overwatch and rehabilitated into a cyborg by Mercy. After being saved, he became an agent of Overwatch in the organization's covert operations division, Blackwatch.

Blackwatch was the organization's covert ops division. The team was run by former Overwatch leader Gabriel Reyes, and alongside him was Jesse McCree, former criminal and marksman and the newly rehabilitated Genji Shimada.