Earlier this week I got to sit down, virtually, with Michael Chu who is the lead writer for lore and story in Overwatch. For people who are just jumping into Overwatch you may wonder what story it has as there is no single player campaign at all in the game and none planned (…or is there?…) However for us Overwatch addicts the story and lore in Blizzard’s multiplayer shooter is immense. The number of characters, places, links and other details in the game as well as its supplementary material is mind boggling, so speaking to the person in charge of linking all these things together and bringing the backstory of Overwatch to life was quite an honour.

Obviously with such a prestigious interview we had to talk about the most serious of things first and that is obviously…

Who is Ana Amari’s Baby Daddy?

Ana Amari, or Ana as she is more commonly known, was added to the Overwatch Roster last year with a backstory that she was one of the original founding members of Overwatch but disappeared for a while after being injured in battle. More importantly she is Fareeha Amari’s mother.

Fareeha is better know as Pharah and is the flying rocket launcher-wielding offense hero who is currently very strong in the Overwatch meta. There is also a question doing the rounds about who is Pharah’s father as it is implied he is or was a member of Overwatch.

The original theory that it was the hammer-weilding Rheinhardt seemed quite solid. All the Overwatch characters have legendary skins that follow a pattern. Ana’s legendary skins are all named after jewels or have jewels on them. While all of Rheinhardt’s skins are named after metal.

Pharah’s skins break this trend with having skins named after jewels and/or metals. So obviously Rheinhardt is the baby daddy right? Well no, Michael Chu himself has stated earlier this year that Rheinhardt is not Pharah’s father. So who could it be?

Our next option is Soldier 76 as Ana has a lot of custom voice interactions with the old soldier

Ana: For a man of your years, you’re looking pretty good, Jack!
S76: Well, all that stuff they pumped into me has to be good for something.

---

S76: Ana, we all thought you were dead. Why didn’t you tell me?
Ana: You of all people are going to ask me that?

---

Ana: Seems like neither of us like being dead very much.
S76: Old soldiers are hard to kill.

So it’s obvious that Soldier and Ana have an emotional connection but is it enough to link Soldier 76 as Pharah’s father? Well it was enough for me to ask Michael during our call and his answer was quite enlightening.

Is Soldier 76 Pharah’s father? No.

I then pushed and asked if one of the other characters is Pharah’s father?

Ermmmmm, I’m going to decline to answer that. You get your one shot so now we’ve eliminated Reinhardt and Soldier 76

So Soldier 76 is not Pharah’s father but someone else in the lore possibly is, surely someone has to be right? So who else could it be, well here are the options and my next guess.

• McCree
  • There is a line of thought that Pharah, while Egyptian, is also part American. Granted the thought is more Native American due to her features but maybe McCree is partially Native American?
  • 70%  Reddit kindly pointed out that McCree is only 5 years older than Pharah… so..  0%
• Torbjorn
  • Nope I just don’t see it. One of Ana’s voice lines is aimed at Torbjorn and how he interferes in her business so I’m not seeing much here.
  • 30%
• Reaper
  • Ana and Reaper have quite a complex relationship and I do think he’s just as likely to be the father as McCree
  • 70%
• Hanzo
  • I’ve not seen any relationship between these two and there doesn’t appear to be any Asian influence in Pharah so I’m going to say no
  • 15%
• Genji
  • As above
  • 15%
• Junkrat
  • Junkrat is crazy, he’s not mentally stable at all and Ana seems very mature so again not seeing this
  • 10%
• Roadhog
  • According to Overwatch Lore Roadhog has pretty much turned into a pure killing machine after what happened to him in Australia. A love life doesn’t seem to be a thing he’s open to right now
  • 10%
• Lucio
  • Are we confusing the Native American influence in Pharah to be more a mixed race influence? Possible but Lucio is pretty young and I don’t see Ana getting down to party at his latest concert
  • 50%
• Winston
  • Ew
  • 0%
• Doomfist?
  • Since he’s not released yet we can’t even guess at this. But he is from Africa as is Pharah so maybe?
  • 60%

So that’s it, for me McCree and Reaper are the next best shots but what do you guys think?

Oh and yes I asked him a ton more questions and that interview will be up next week so make sure to check back for that.

Last Updated: April 7, 2017