The latest animated short for Overwatch that was shown off during Blizzard’s Reveal Ceremony at Gamescom today centered around the Chinese Climatologist Mei during her time on Ecopoint: Antarctica. Back in November after the recent release of the Ecopoint: Antarctica arcade map, we stated we believed Mei was the most deserving character to receive an Overwatch animated short next. So needless to say nine months later we are pretty excited about the release of “Rise and Shine”.
A lot of background information and can inferred from this ten minute short, so let’s go through it and breakdown everything this video can tell us contextually about the larger Overwatch narrative as a whole as well as some background for Mei to better understand the short itself.
WHAT IS ECOPOINT: ANTARCTICA?
Ecopoint: Antarctica, or Watchpoint: Antarctica, is a station in Antarctica that was maintained by Overwatch in order to monitor climate change and severe weather anomalies in the region. The station was hit by a polar storm causing the six staff members to enter cryostasis to freeze themselves as a last-chance effort to survives as their supplies dwindled with no notion of a rescue team on the way. The whole team perishes expect for Mei, due to their pods malfunctioning over the course of nine years asleep.
Mei herself specializes in “abnormal climate phenomena and their effects on different ecosystems around the world” according to her journal entries. The reasoning for the sudden increase in climate abnormality, thus causing the Ecopoints to be established, is guessed to be caused by the “advent of new technologies, the rapidly growing omnic population, and drastically increased consumption of resources” as stated in Mei’s story post on her character page, however the cause is still not unequivocally known.
MEI’S TEAM
The six staff members at Ecopoint: Antarctica were a researcher named Adams, a climatologist named Arrhenius, an engineer named MacReady, a cryonicist named Opara, another cryonicist named Torres, and finally the character we all know and love, Mei. Not much is known about Mei’s fellow researches, however on their cyro-pods we are able to see their countries of origins with Adams and MacReady from the U.S., Arrhenius from Sweden, Opara from Numbani, and Torres from Spain.
In the short, Mei refers to Opara as the captain, and we get a torso glimpse of a fellow researcher, however it is never specified exactly which member he is. He does cutely ask Snowball to give him his socks back though.
We did get a first look at what the team looks like in this short from a group photo displayed beside one of the computer monitors. There’s no real way to tell who is who, but it’s still nice to know their faces rather than just their names on the outside of their malfunctioning pods. At the end of the short Mei places each of their mugs on their platforms, and here’s hoping the map is updated to include this as well.
TIMELINE
In terms of when this short takes place, at the beginning of the video we get a short glimpse of Mei right before she went into cryogensis. At age 31 she entered into the chamber where she stayed frozen for nine years. Her 31 year age is her biological age and does not take into account her time frozen, which was confirmed by Overwatch Lead Writer Michael Chu. Therefore, if she hadn’t been frozen, she would be 40 in the current Overwatch timeline.
When Mei entered cyrostatis, Overwatch had not yet been disbanded. During her nine years frozen, the group had been disbanded due to “overwhelming negative public sentiment and allegations of corruption and abuses of power.” This doesn’t quite explain why no one would go back to check up on Ecopoint: Antarctica after Overwatch was disbanded, however in the screenshot shown above when Snowball shows Mei all the headlines explaining the end of Overwatch, there is one news story that states the base was lost in the polar storm, meaning no one was able to even find Mei and her team after it hit.
The conlusion of the video has Mei recieve a transmission from Winston, which many will recognize as the opening video for the game itself as well as the premise to one of the first Overwatch animated shorts “Recall”.
After Mei leaves the Ecopoint, in her journals she states she visits Winston and then goes to the Yukon, Asia, Los Angeles, and then back to Asia in the Himalayas.
HOW DID MEI WAKE UP?
One question players had previous to this short was how exactly did Mei wake up having spent almost a decade frozen? What caused the cyrochamber to reopen?
“Rise and Shine” answers this question with Winston’s recall transmission acting as the trigger for the system to restart and allow Mei to wake up. With one battery left at the Ecopoint and Mei just hours from freezing alongside her crew, the message blinks onto one of the computers reading a weak signal. This then initializes the tanks and awakens Mei, and since her crews pods had all malfunctioned she was the only survivor. The reason why their pods were broken and Mei’s still functions is not discussed, however it might be due to the dwindling power supply and since Mei was at the end of the row of pods, hers was the last one recieveing the remaining power before it turned off completely.
So inadventernly and at the perfect moment, Winston ended up saving Mei with his recall transmission. It’s sort of sweet to think that Winston sent out that message to save lives, and ended up doing so directly with one of his friends and colleagues.
THE DATA
Mei leaves the sensors on before being frozen in order to have a new data set to examine when she wakes up. However, she really didn’t expect to have nine years worth of data to comb through when getting into that chamber. Exactly what the data is in reference to is quickly explained, and might even hint to climate issues within the world of Overwatch in the future.
Since Mei specializes in weather anomaly, or when weather does not behave in the right manner in accordance with its location or season, the data she looks at after waking up is tracking the degree in which the weather anomalies were taking place in Antarctica specifically. She says, “the atmospheric fluctuations above the anomaly have gotten…” and then cuts herself off after looking at a red graph reaching off the chart levels titled ‘Anomaly Detection’ which shows data that is worse than they predicted according to Mei. As she backs away from the tabletop monitor (which also acts as a ping pong table) there are several red caution markers scattered throughout the map.
This suggests that there is a future climate threat in the world of Overwatch, and Mei sharing the data with headquarters would help figure out ways to stop its progression before it effects more populated areas of the world. Mei even says by sharing this data she could save millions of lives, so its threat is pretty well implied. Perhaps the anomaly will be something worked into the games lore later on, adding a new threat to the world alongside the coming of a second onmic crisis. Blizzard is certainly keeping its options open for its inclusion by referencing it so clearly in this short.
MEI’S ENDOTHERMIC BLASTER
During the short we got an amazing glimpse into the actual creation of Mei’s in-game weapon, her Endothermic Blaster. Although it can look different depending on her chosen skin, this prototype is the basis for its design.
After needing a way to climb a control tower to reach Winston’s transmission, Mei goes all Tony Stark on us and makes a special ice generating gun using only things she finds around the station. Turns out the main portion of the gun is made up of a blow dryer, water jug, whipped cream can, and several other smaller parts making up the rest. She also develops her own special liquid that turns to ice on contact, so it turns out Mei is a chemistry wiz as well.
She is able to attach Snowball to the back of the build and use it as a charger so she can bring him wherever she goes. After she leaves the Ecopoint she field-tests the gear in the Yukon to work out the bugs, and even mistakenly freezes her own arm. In her journal she says that after testing it on herself, she isn’t as worried to test it on the “cute animals” she wants to study. So is Mei out there just freezing bunnies and squirrels like a psychopath? Jeez, hope not.
SNOWBALL
Finally, in this short we got a great look into the personalty of Mei’s tiny robot companion, Snowball. Of course we have seen Snowball before, and gotten a sense of his personality in Mei’s highlight intros and emotes, but this time we get an in-depth look into his origins with Mei and role at Ecopoint: Antarctica.
Snowball acts like a helper/companion at the station, helping out the staff with anything from gathering data to getting them a warm beverage in their favorite mugs. He has a definite ‘Wall-E’ vibe, and has an affection for Mei that is pretty adorable. He expresses himself through his eyes and plates on the side of his head that move like a dog’s ears in terms of emotion.
During the climax of the short, Snowball uses his remaining energy levels to power the station so Mei is able to finish her Endothermic Blaster and receive Winston’s transmission, thus saving them both.
It’s great having some background info for both Mei and Snowball, thus personifying them more and garnering a greater sense of personality for players when playing as her or against her. Mei’s short is arguably the best one yet, and has likely created an even greater demand for an Overwatch movie already.
