Overwatch 2 Fans Have Already Embraced Its New, Non-Binary Hero
Overwatch 2’s ninth season is nearly over, and when the tenth begins on April 16, the hero shooter is getting a few significant changes.All of its heroes will no longer be locked behind the battle pass and the game will get a new shop dedicated to Mythic Skins only. But Overwatch 2 is also getting a new Damage hero in Venture, a scrappy, drill-based, non-binary character who can dig themself underground and come back up for air right on an objective. While we’ve only seen concept footage of the character in action, the Overwatch community is already embracing them and coming up with inside jokes about them that are spreading through the fandom like wildfire. Before Venture has even escorted a payload or helped push a barricade, they have been deemed a rock eater.
The joke started innocently enough. Some fans noted Venture’s chipped tooth in their concept art and thus made the logical conclusion that they must have broken it on something. Given that their entire kit and design are based on digging and drilling, players landed on the silly idea that they must have been eating rocks. Once the suggestion was made, Overwatch fans got to work riffing on the idea in excellent art and jokes.
Queen's Gambit (2020) #Overwatch pic.twitter.com/9cijs3zKd5
— Stennis (@cryptcoop) March 27, 2024
venture should 100000000% be able to eat sigmas rock when he throws it
— Overwatch Anonymous (@OWAnonymous_) March 23, 2024
Part 2.
[#venture #sigma #Overwatch2Fanart #reddieredtoons] https://t.co/J2DQV5Jy53 pic.twitter.com/6WMkEdIu6v— Reddie (@reddieredtoons) March 23, 2024
— Overwatch Anonymous (@OWAnonymous_) March 26, 2024
While Venture is likely too close to launch for the Blizzard team to implement the joke into pre-match banter, Overwatch 2 developers past and present have endorsed this collective headcanon.
this is the highest honor i can bestow upon you, thank u champion pic.twitter.com/gaywSe6Jw3
— Miranda (@Trouvai11e) March 27, 2024
All of this “Venture eats rocks” discourse ignores the possibility that they pick their teeth with their drill and had a little accident, and I just wanted to point that out as a fellow shitposter and fan of the Overwatchian arts.
(Do NOT add this to a wiki. I am JOKING.)— Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie 💙 @gavinetc.bsky.social (@GavinEtc) March 22, 2024
Venture’s place in the overarching Overwatch world is unclear at this point, but game director Aaron Keller has stated the team plans to release more on their lore in the future in a way that is “pretty different to things that [Blizzard has] done before.” Whatever the Overwatch story looks like moving forward, it will have a lot of heavy lifting to do now that Blizzard has reportedly canceled its planned story missions.