Roadhog is one of Overwatch 2’s quieter heroes. Where some characters like Tracer and Junkrat are real chatterboxes, the chain-slinging, shotgun-toting Tank is a man of few words. That changes with the game’s latest limited-time mode, which makes him the announcer. Not only is he the one to declare your team the victor, but he also has nicknames for several members of the cast at the hero select screen. They’re delicious roasts of nearly every character that also offer a deeper look at a character who doesn’t usually get a ton of spotlight in Overwatch’s grander story.
The PachiMarchi event includes several cosmetics based on the in-universe Pachimari mascot that Roadhog is a big fan of, a few of which originate from when a similar event ran in the first Overwatch back in 2021. However, the new 3v3 deathmatch mode Catch-A-Mari is the real treat because Roadhog voice actor Josh Petersdorf delivers a concise, pitch-perfect roast of most of your faves as you build your team before a match. Unfortunately, there isn’t one for every character. According to senior writer and narrative designer Justin Groot, the nicknames in the mode now were part of an hour-long brainstorming session before deadline, which means a few favorites didn’t get a nickname. But the ones that are here are delightful.
A few standouts include:
Cassidy – Cactus Bootbuckle
Doomfist – Largefist
Genji – 500 Edges
Mei Princess Icicle
Ramattra – Thunko, the Metal Man
Sigma – Gravity Frank
Zarya – Gravity Janice
Soldier: 76 – Legs of America
Widowmaker – Scopetta Baguette
Winston – Mister Nanners
All of these are very funny caricatures of each of these heroes, but my favorite one is Sojourn, who gets her full government name “Former Overwatch Acting Commander Vivian ‘Sojourn’ Chase.” It shows she is not to be fucked with and that Roadhog, despite roasting everyone else, respects her. 500 Edges is such a good name for Genji because he’s got a bunch of sharp weaponry at his disposal, but he’s also an edgelord, and it’s fun to see Overwatch poke fun at itself like this. Legs of America points to Soldier: 76 being from the US of A, but the character’s history has always made him feel like a Captain America analog for the series, so needling his patriotism is a good gag. They could have called him America’s Ass if they really wanted to lean into the comparison, but Soldier famously has no ass.
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It’s a small touch, but it feels like Overwatch 2’s writing has leaned harder into both fleshing out how characters relate to each other and into the fandom’s perception of them, as well. And it’s nice to get a sense of how Roadhog views other heroes, even if the relationships aren’t quite as overt. Hopefully the next time this mode rolls around, the team will add more nicknames for the whole cast.
Earlier this month, the wiki-hosting company Fandom scooped up several games sites, including Giant Bomb and GameSpot, in an acquisition worth $50 million. And that exorbitant price of the sale, coupled with what the website calls “questionable staffing decisions” at the company, has led the Zelda Wiki to break free from “corporate consolidation” and claim its independence from Fandom.
Opened in 2005 and independent up until its transfer over to Gamepedia hosting in 2017, the Zelda Wiki is one of the biggest fan-run games wikis around. With thousands of entries from games across the entire franchise, you could spend days or weeks scrolling through the digital encyclopedia and probably still not finish it in its entirety. It’s my go-to resource when looking up information on a specific enemy or weapon in Nintendo’s popular franchise, and it hosts 11,199 articles. However, now you’re gonna have to visit a brand-new website if you have bookmarked and/or frequented the old Zelda Wiki.
Staff at the website announced on Twitter this week that, “after many months of preparation,” the website is now totally independent from Fandom or any other entity.
“For over a decade, from its creation in 2005 to its transfer to Gamepedia in 2017, the Zelda Wiki was a fully independent site,” the wiki’s EIC wrote. “Even after the transfer, and Gamepedia’s subsequent acquisition by Fandom, Inc., the site sought to continue its mission of curating an editorially independent, high-quality wiki operated by fans. However, we have come to believe that these ideals are incompatible with Fandom.”
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There was a reason for such a scathing statement. Citing Fandom’s “recent buyouts and questionable staffing decisions,” the Zelda Wiki staff said it wants to “keep the internet free from corporate consolidation” and “hegemonic control.” As such, the team moved the wiki to a new home, though the Fandom one is still up and running.
Responses to the news have been overwhelmingly positive online. Multiple folks have called this a big win for the Zelda Wiki, while others are looking forward to fewer ads and a better layout on the site. Even the Twitter account for the Fallout Wiki, one of the few publicly feuding with Fandom over intrusive videos and ads on the site, congratulated the Zelda Wiki team for breaking from the company. Generally, there’s some public wariness about Fandom’s growing influence over fan-led Wikis that have provided useful free resources to the community about big franchises. As such, there are now even resources shared for alternatives to Fandom Wikis, and some encouragement in the comments from this announcement to get more Wikis to do the same. While independent Wikis do exist, over the years Fandom has become the more dominant website when people Google for certain topics.
In Discord messages with Kotaku, community staff member ModdedInkling said the old Fandom wiki will “continue to be updated” by a few volunteers that have chosen to remain there. Just about everyone else, however, will move to the website’s new domain. ModdedInkling also explained what this independence means for the staff.
“Being ‘editorially independent’ means having full creative control over the wiki’s content under its own policies as opposed to Fandom’s policies,” ModdedInkling said. “This also includes the wiki’s overall appearance (user interface, templates, etc.), which has been one of the main subjects discussed by many independent wikis splitting away from Fandom. Another topic of interest involves avoiding mandated censorship. Certain wikis also have content that involves socio-politics and ethics that are often restricted by Fandom, but are deemed relevant by the community.”
ModdedInkling extrapolated on the nature of Fandom’s alleged censorship. He said that while nothing has been blocked on the Zelda Wikia (to his knowledge, anyway), there have been some alterations made to entries post-publication on other wikis.
“Basically, Fandom’s policies may invoke a level of censorship on certain sensitive topics, even if it is relevant towards a work of fiction, if it is deemed to go against their policy,” ModdedInkling said. “Sometimes it may involve altering one’s information as well even if it is less accurate. This can happen through a variety of topics, such as discussions involving the retroactive change of a character’s traits, even if it was historically inaccurate to change it.”
ModdedInkling brought up one instance where Fandom’s policies got in the way of making what they consider accurate information available. On Wookieepedia, the digital encyclopedia for Star Wars, there were allegedly complications around changing the name of someone who later came out as trans.
“There was debate involving the naming conventions of someone identifying later as trans,” ModdedInkling said. “The mandate was to retroactively change any of the names displayed for the person or character, even though that was not how they were referred to at the time. I don’t remember if it was a real-life person or a fictional character. It did not cause them to fork, but it was one concern that NIWA had in potential examples involving character pronouns like Vivian from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Sheik from Ocarina of Time, or Vilia from Breath of the Wild.”
ModdedInkling clarified the example to Kotaku, saying it isn’t representative of his or the rest of the Zelda Wiki team’s beliefs. He noted the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance, a network of other wikis for Nintendo games, has a goal to “handle sensitive topics with care to prevent any sort of misrepresentation.” This, he noted, aligns with the Zelda Wiki teams’ ideals.
Kotaku has reached out to Fandom for comment.
The Zelda Wiki is just the most recent digital encyclopedia to split from its parent company and the third to break away from Fandom specifically in recent memory. Earlier this year, the team behind the Terraria Wiki announced on Steam that it’ll host a new site separate from Fandom. Meanwhile, the Runescape Wiki went indie years ago in response to corporate mandates forcing autoplaying videos in posts. The Zelda Wiki can now be found in the NIWA database, which includes other independent, volunteer-run websites like Bulbapedia (the digital encyclopedia dedicated to all things Pokémon) and SmashWiki.
Update, 10/21/22, 6:30 p.m. ET: Added a clarifying statement from ModdedInkling.
