Russia had played a major role in ending the war but they were on the brink of a new crisis. War was on the table once again when the Siberian Omnium facility was reactivated. Throwing away her will to enter the World Heavy-Lifting and Body Building Championships she had been preparing for all her life, the national athlete Aleksandra Zaryanova turned to stand against the Omnium threat and became a national symbol of hope.

As chaos spread back to the world, bells of catastrophy started ringing. Some clamities started making the way. For example, one of the many bases that Overwatch set up to observe various climates, Watchpoint: Anctartica lost all communication with the outside world after being exposed to a violent storm. The only survivor amongst the climatologists and scientists inside the facility was Mei-Ling Zhou, who was able to freeze herself. While not directly related to Overwatch, South Korea was having difficulty in finding pilots for the MEKAs against the siege from the ocean. Calling desperate measures on these desperate times, they turned to Hana “D.va” song, a Starcraft world champion, to be a MEKA pilot.

Just about then started the attacks on the organization. The most noticable one was from the terrorist group Talon which had been long tracked by the French Overwatch agent Gérard Lacroix. Kidnapping Gérard’s wife Amélie and brainwashing her into an agent, Talon made Amélie murder her own husband. Returning to Talon under the codename “Widowmaker”, Amélie conducted more assassinations for the organization. Overwatch was being cornered by not only these attacks but also claims of corruption, mismanagement and breach of human rights; and their reputation started to falter. While United Nations formed a committee to investigate the organization, it was Overwatch’s two public faces that hammered the final nail on Overwatch’s coffin: Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison.

Morrison spoke up about his concerns that Blackwatch’s dirty work (especially considering their faltering reputation at the time) could completely bring Overwatch down while Reyes was against this idea. The relationship between the two had already been strained after Morrison’s promotion and the disagreement quickly escalated into violence. The fight between the two resulted in an explosion of the Swiss base of Overwatch, and both of the once-close friends were assumed dead since their bodies were nowhere to be found. This escalation, 20 years after the original Omnic Crisis, resulted in Overwatch to be shut down and deemed illegal. Some former Overwatch agents became arms for hire while others kept being heroes on their own. Only one of them, Winston, withdrew to the lab in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, built a satellite drone that would re-enable Overwatch’s global connections, and started to wait for the day when the world would need more heroes.

Assumed KIA, Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison both became spectres of their former selves. Jack Morrison took the name of Soldier: 76 and became a masked avenger bent on exposing the conspiracy against Overwatch in a relentless hunt. After being reborn as the Reaper, Gabriel Reyes’ only goal was to find and kill the former Overwatch agents. He even joined the terrorist organization Talon as a means to this end. And years later, when he infiltrated Winston’s laboratory in Watchpoint: Gibraltar, he unintentionally called Overwatch back to duty. Following the call, the struggle between Talon and now-outlawed Overwatch became even more intense. The two groups kept running into each other in several cases, such as Tekharta Mondatta’s assassination.