Overwatch Slang Is Its Own Special Brand Of Twisted

But there are so many more examples of bizarre Overwatch shorthand that would set off alarm bells for anyone not intimately aware of its inner workings. Since D.Va is a character who fights inside of a giant mech and can only be killed if she ejects herself from that mech before it blows up, players commonly call the de-meched D.Va a “baby D.Va.” As such, phrases like “kill the baby” and “abort the baby” will ring out during matches—the latter of which a Republican Senator would love to uphold as an example of gamer brain rot.

The aforementioned super-smart gorilla, whose name is Winston, is almost never referred to as such. He is, to all of us Overwatch players, simply “monkey,” and when he uses his ultimate ability (Primal Rage), you’ll hear the team he’s up against shouting “Angry monkey! Angry monkey!” to warn each other of his wrath.

Oftentimes Overwatch players will use nicknames for characters’ ultimate abilities, like Reinhardt’s “hammer” instead of Earthshatter, Lucio’s “beat drop” in place of Sound Barrier, or, um, “blowing your load” as a stand-in for Torbjorn’s Molten Core ult, which spews lava all over a designated area. It’s an apt replacement.

While every game has its own shorthand, there is something uniquely twisted and perverted about the slang used in Overwatch 2. In a way, it’s incredibly fitting for a game marked by both diversity in cast and player base as well as toxicity in its competitive modes. Only in Overwatch would the phrase “Can you please throw your balls at Soldier, he’s got aimbot right now” make sense, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.