The highly-anticipated Torbjörn rework has finally gone live, and most fans couldn’t be happier. Blizzard seems to have flawlessly succeeded in their stated goal of broadening Torbjörn’s appeal beyond bots and that one dropout friend who is somehow in high diamond, finally giving you a reason to do anything besides hit your turret with a hammer at crotch height.
However, while the announcement that the rework would feature entirely new voice lines and interactions was initially met with excitement, the lines themselves seem to be focused entirely around conveying the intense, visceral disgust the dwarvish engineer feels for the omnic “breed,” including over four hours of slightly different disgusted snorts that play whenever he bumps shoulders with Orisa or Zenyatta.
“Look, we aren’t saying that Torbjörn can’t hate omnics, or even that he shouldn’t hate omnics,” explains IHitTheTurret, a prominent poster on r/TorbMains who has logged over three thousand hours as Engineer in TF2. “It’s just that most of the other characters who hate omnics generally avoid insinuating that they’re taking our jobs. This is also the first time they’ve been referred to as ‘coggers,’ which frankly, feels dirty just to type.”
IHitTheTurret goes on to mention an odd interaction observed in his most recent game, taking place between Torbjörn and an allied Doomfist. “I mean, he doesn’t say anything to Doomfist, but that’s just it. He refuses to talk to Doomfist now. Like… entirely. Apparently, he won’t even look at him. And beyond a few enhancements here and there, Doomfist is fully human!” This behavior apparently extends to several other characters. They are the ones you would expect.
Also, Hammond for some reason.
Blizzard also recently revealed Ghost Torbjörn, a Halloween skin that we can’t help but notice looks kinda… pointy. When asked to comment, Jeff Kaplan, walking across a lake in a glowing golden robe, clarified that “the Overwatch team is totally committed to making sure that everyone, regardless of gender, race, or sexuality, feels like they have a positive role model to look up to. And with that in mind, we’ve begun including representation for the most maligned group of people of the modern age: racists.”
