Mysterious Overwatch Barcodes Are Prompting Some Serious Conspiracies
Now that Overwatch's latest hero, a mech-rolling death-dealing hamster, has hit the game's PTR, [...]
Now that Overwatch's latest hero, a mech-rolling death-dealing hamster, has hit the game's PTR, players haves something even newer to ponder. Blizzard's hit FPS is rife with hidden lore, intricate backstories, and nefarious plots from Blackwatch, so when players started seeing barcodes in-games, you know the conspiracy theories got wild!
For those that may not know, Overwatch is much more than what meets the eye. At first glance, it might look like a simple shooter but look again and you'll find tragedy, love lost, heroes defeated, and sinister experimentations. The game itself is accompanied by animated shorts, comics, and vital backstory voice lines as well which paints a much bigger picture than simply the game itself. So when Hammond "The Wrecking Ball" was first teased with a giant barcode on his mech-ball, and even more appearing throughout the game, players got to digging.
The original post from Reddit user 'Karahe' stated:
"Those are texture files from the game files. Can't get any higher res than that. And those are just bar codes, I've noticed so many more clues, especially good old letter/number codes but that's for another post.
Let's do something about it and try and solve them !!
I know most aren't actual bar codes you can scan and get a direct translation of. These are codes, with bars. Best term I could come up with is bar code.
I'm thinking they could be "fonts". There are some custom fonts supposed to look like bar codes out there. Maybe we have to figure out which font was used for each type of bar code and then see what letter/number corresponds to what bars in that font and tada, a message. But so far, no luck."
Then more and more started appearing, and very recently, prompting them to add:
"They keep adding bar codes to RECENT things. Like Hammond's mech and before that, Brigitte's armor. Whatever it is, it's on going and it's a real shame no one in the community noticed or cares. Let's crack the codes and figure out what Blizzard has in store for us. u/ShittyPianist ran The Summer Games Lootbox bar code through a scanner and it's a Code 128 type of barcode which translates to : Donald."
"This could be an easter egg in reference to Donald Phan, a character artist for Overwatch who also worked on "textures" (bar codes qualify as textures sooo) but I have no proof of that as it only says "donald" and that's it."
And now there is a full blown investigation! To join in on the fun, and to submit your own findings, check out the discord to hunt down the answer for these mysterious barcodes!
