Overwatch's latest short Rise and Shine stars Mei and her robotic friend Snowball
As promised, the latest Overwatch short has been released, and it stars climatologist Mei.
The Overwatch short, Rise and Shine, was shown at gamescom 2017 during Blizzard's stage show.
It shows Mei waking up from cryogenic sleep after nine years. Everyone else on her team who were also in suspended slumber, are in malfunctioning chambers, making her the last surviving scientist at Ecopoint.
There are power issues, and her robot friend Snowball uses its power to keep the base going in Antarctica so Mei can try to reach a signal. But he's okay in the end. Luckily.
In her origin story, Mei-Ling Zhou was part of a multiyear initiative trying to discover an unexplained climate phenomena. Ecopoint in Antarctica, where she was stationed, was just one of many eco-Watchpoints established by Overwatch to discover the cause of such drastic environmental changes.
During a sudden polar storm, the monitoring station in Antarctica was cut off from the outside world and damaged. With supplies running out, Mei and the rest of the faculty entered cryostasis until a rescue attempt could be made.
In the Overwatch short released by Blizzard today, Mei finds out after waking up the Overwatch team has been disbanded, the eco-Watchpoints were no longer in operation, and any clues as to the cause were lost.
After learning what transpired while she was in cryostasis, Mei says goodbye to her fallen team members, uses what little resources she has left at the base, and sets off with Snowball and her portable climate-manipulation tech in tow.
Mei is determined to continue her mission to the climate threats while trying to re-establish the eco-network. And, obviously, she eventually meets back up with the now scattered Overwatch team.
It's a rather cute short, and adds more color to Mei's origin story.