Overwatch – Is Mei’s Weather Robot Snowball an Omnic?

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Mei's robot Snowball

Mei's animated short makes it apparent that Mei's robot friend Snowball is fairly self-aware, being at least as intelligent as Bastion or Orisa.

Previously I'd assumed that omnics and robots were interchangeable in the Overwatch universe, but I'm not sure whether the term would apply to Mei's weather robot.

Is Snowball considered to be an omnic?

Best Answer

From the wiki page on Omnics, it is specifically stated that Snowball is not an Omnic.

In Overwatch, omnic and robot are just about interchangeable as colloquial terms. In this sense, for example, people are able to use both terms to describe a robot who possesses a complex artificial intelligence. Drones like Snowball, on the other hand, do not implement qualified AI (which are manually controlled to follow specific and simple patterns); they cannot be called omnics.

Furthermore, omnics are specifically created by the Omnica Corporation, which Snowball was not. From the Omnic gamepedia page:

Omnics are produced by omniums, automated robotics factories that were built with self-improving software algorithms which eventually became self-aware.

While technically possessing an AI of potentially complex properties, Snowball was not created by the Omnica Corporation (it was created by Mei herself, according to Snowball's wikia page), thus, is not an omnic.

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