A highly upvoted Reddit thread over on the Overwatch subreddit has brought to light an enormous number of secret “barcodes” that are scattered throughout the game. Reddit user u/Karahe has gone through numerous maps, studied different character models, and compiled a whole list of all of the barcodes he’s discovered on Imgur. Karahe notes that Blizzard continues to had new barcodes to recent content and believes that they point towards some sort of Easter egg or are hints related to a larger secret.
Overwatch’s newest character, Hammond, happens to feature a big barcode on the back of his mech.
The post has lead many different Redditors to join forces to try and solve the mystery. Some of their findings are pretty interesting. One Reddit user had access to a barcode scanner and scanned in the below barcode that was found on the Summer Games Lootbox. He discovered that it translated into the word “Donald”.
Some Redditors believe that, while a bit of a stretch, this could actually be referencing Donald Phan, a character artist for Overwatch.
While definitely a popular post right now, this isn’t actually the first time Redditors have been trying to scan different codes featured in Overwatch. Two years ago, user u/Shadowbourne2415 scanned the below QR code found in Route 66 and discovered that it simply stated, “Credit Chips NOT Accepted.”
I’m not entirely convinced that there’s any super secret Easter egg here. The barcodes seem to me to be merely a “cool” aesthetic design that has coincidentally come to be associated with the Overwatch artwork. Still, if there is something special hidden among the barcodes, it would be very exciting to see what it is.
If you’re interested in joining the detective work, you can jump in to the Overwatch Discord channel right here.
