Overwatch is set sixty years into the future of a fictionalized Earth, thirty years after the resolution of what is known as the "Omnic Crisis." Before the Omnic Crisis, humanity had been in a golden age of prosperity and technology development. Humans developed robots with artificial intelligence called "Omnics", which were put to use to achieve economic equality, and began to be treated as people in their own right. The Omnic Crisis began when the worldwide automated "omnium" facilities that produced them started producing a series of lethal, hostile robots that attacked humankind. Initially, individual countries responded with various programs: the United States developed its Soldier Enhancement Program to produce elite fighters, for example, while Germany assembled the knight-like Crusaders. When these efforts failed to ward off the Omnics, the United Nations quickly formed Overwatch, an international task force combining these individual programs to combat this threat and restore order.
