Towards the end of July, Blizzard Entertainment released Hero 31 of Overwatch to the public – Siebren de Kuiper, aka Sigma. Within a few hours to a few days, Sigma’s origin video gained over 5 million views, let alone 1 million from the follow-up video of Jeff Kaplan introduction of him. Already available as on PTS (Public Test Server), the new Overwatch character and lore has gained both a large welcome and criticism.
Through this analysis, we will explore the character of Sigma in his origin, his Overwatch lore connections, and respond to recent criticism from fans. Due to this being an article and not a video, gameplay will not be covered. With that out of the way, let’s break it down!
Sigma’s Analysis: The Equation of His Place in Overwatch
As seen in the Overwatch’s video, Sigma’s Origin is one that is full of emotional depth, solid story telling, suspenseful imagery, and incredible voice acting.
To summarize the story, Dr. Kuiper puts his theory on gravitational harnessing to the test by trying harness a black hole for the first time. The experiment completely backfires, causing him to suffer from long-term psychological damage that restrict him from controlling physical movement. For years, he was held in a government facility, constantly being tested on until he was broken out by Talon. As one can tell in his origin video, the gunshots in the background were Reaper’s dual-wielding shotguns and Widowmaker’s sniper rifle (to be honest, it sounded like Reaper just pulled a Death Blossom Ult on the government facility, but who knows honestly).
Under Talon influence, Dr. Kuiper regained control over his developed powers with the hope of continuing to unlock the secrets of the universe. Though his mind was free again, it was also fractured, forever causing him to struggle in keeping it together. Unknown to him, however, Talon heavily controlled him, using him as a weapon and as a key to their war against world and eventually Overwatch.
What I greatly appreciate about Blizzard’s approach to Sigma’s origin was the balance between showing and telling the story via dialogue. In nearly every Overwatch origin story, there is a narration from the character with a comic slideshow of their life over time. It is a very simple story-telling formula while being unique in writing and art style. Sigma’s origin greatly stands out not just because it is brand new, but because it is told in a very different manner.
Rather than narrating his life story, it is primarily in the moment. Viewers are deeply immersed into the character of Sigma from a present tense perspective rather than a past tense, along with outstanding visuals and voice acting from Boris Heistand. It is one that is heavily intense and is without a doubt one of the more disturbing Overwatch origins, next to Moria, Doomfist, and Soldier: 76. Just goes to show that trying to play God by creating and pursuing ungodly technological/scientific advances does not always go well.
In regards to his place in Overwatch, many fans have made the connection that Sigma worked on Horizon Lunar Colony, the space station home Winston and Hammond. His line is, “I’d never thought I’d be back here. It’s beautiful…and cold.” Though this is solid evidence, the idea of him knowing Winston and Hammond is highly unlikely, due to the possibility that Winston could have been very young and Hammond not even being born yet. His line implies that it has been a significant amount of time – possibly years – since he had been on the Lunar Colony. I can only imagine that his time on the base was for setting up his own for future experiments, which is where his blackhole harnessing took place.
Another connection fans have made has been Sigma’s gravity harness and Zarya’s Particle Cannon, which carries her Gravitational Surge ult. Some have speculated that Russian intelligence “borrowed” Sigma’s research for personal use. Other’s go into a deep theory regarding the Tobelsteins’.
In a lore analysis from Master Ian Gamer, Sigma’s voice line on Horizon Lunar Colony states that “The Tobelsteins’ work remains flawed. Tragic.” Due to the apostrophe “s,” it implies that the Tobelsteins is of multiple people. No specific lore has shed light on who the Tobelsteins are, however, some have speculated that they may have ties with Volskaya Industries. When Sombra stares at the map of her global theory in her origin story (see the image above), there seem’s to be a connection with Volskaya (left side), as a mysterious male figure (her left side) is connected to her and the Gravitational Surge Zarya’s weapon. Fans have speculated that it is possible that the Tobelstein’s worked with Russia and were racing against Dr. Kuiper to achieve the black hole harness theory, thus pushing Dr. Kuiper’s to make haste rather than take his time.
This all remains as a theory and we are not sure as to when new information will be revealed, let alone if.
A Response to Criticism – Sigma’s Ethnicity, Gender, & Psychological State
Despite the popularity of both Sigma’s origin and gameplay, Blizzard has unfortunately gained backlash from some Overwatch fans.
The first came from Twitter as fans criticized Overwatch for having another “white male” character in the game.
“Because the game doesn’t already have enough white dudes? C’mom.” – @susistuart
“Am I seeing this right? You’re adding another old white guy but this time to spice things up you’re making him a violent dangerous caricature of DID? And here I thought we hit the rock bottom with Ashe’s release.” – @mlm_lucio
“Great…another white dude.” – @Ashleyy_Mercy
This is just a portion of hundreds of tweets complaining and criticizing Overwatch’s character.
Being an minority myself (Mexican/Native American ethnicity), I understand racial frustrations in other areas of entertainment and media. This is not one of them. In the area of race and gender, Overwatch has accomplished much in its characters:
- There are 13 male characters out of 31 diverse characters.
- 6 of those 13 are white, and 7 are of color (Japanese, Mexican, Brazilian, Haitian, Nigerian, New Zealand Maori).
- There are 12 female characters out of 31 diverse characters.
- 6 of the those 12 are white, and the other 6 are of color (Mexican, Egyptian, Indian, Korean, Chinese).
- Overwatch has 4 non-human characters out of 30 diverse characters, 2 being male animals, a possible male robot, and a female robot.
The idea that Overwatch has too many white male characters let alone male characters is nothing but a complete fallacy. With the roster continuing to grow, Overwatch continues to improve in establishing globally diverse characters. To quote u/Taylonic on Reddit regarding this topic:
“Representation does not mean the erasure of ‘old white men.’ Representation does not mean ignoring the many interesting traits about a new character…in favour of reducing them to an old white man’….a good character is more than their skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, or even species. What I love about the cast of Overwatch is that all this diversity is seamlessly interwoven with compelling personalities and backstories that are at the forefront of their character design.”
The second topic is that of mental illness. Overwatch’s Sigma creators came under fire from Twitter users regarding the mental state of Sigma, let alone his appearance without shoes. In an interview with Polgyon, Overwatch Lead Writer Michael Chu stated that,
“It’s interesting, because I can see how people in the community have identified with Sigma as someone who is struggling or dealing with mental health issues, but with the idea of the character, we never intended him to be an example of someone who’s going through mental health issues. He’s really supposed to be more focused on this very specific thing that happened to him, which is that his body and his mind were literally ripped apart by the momentary exposure to a black hole.
“With other aspects of his character, he’s certainly supposed to be eccentric. The idea behind that is more just that he sees the world a little differently. We liked this idea that he had this connection to music. So, for example, the way that he thinks about the universe, gravity, and physics, is through this prism of music. From experience talking to physicists and especially theoretical physicists is that other things that aren’t literally just the equation or the mathematics have influenced the way in which they interpret things. And so that’s the direction we went with him.”
In a separate interview with Arstation, Sigma art designer Qiu Fang stated that “We decided to keep the feet bare to sell the ‘asylum’ look a bit more; in many institutions patients are not allowed to have shoes because they might cause harm with the laces.”
In regards to the shoes and the “Asylum” gameplay skin, I agree with the fans that it heavily embraces negative tropes of those with mental illnesses, considering that they in fact can wear shoes in hospitals, just without laces. The Asylum skin itself is one that comes off as a very disturbing and honestly unnecessary, as it stereotypically depicts the insanity of a mental patient in a straight jacket and mask. As for his mental illness, I will have to agree with Mr. Chu. Sigma, based on his origin, never suffered from a mental illness prior to the accident. I defend the story of Sigma, but not his physical appearance, skin wise.
This is not to say that Blizzard is clear of any criticism of their character’s designs or attributes. In some incidents in the past, fans were right about a number of things. This honestly one that I side with Blizzard for the most part.
What do you think of Sigma as a playable character and his origin? Let us know!
