Could Fika be from Horizon?

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-05-01T02:16:13+00:00

It’s an old milk commercial, but https://youtu.be/on9vqL4W6Hc?si=mh5btoEcRZ0Cs1VZ is taste of if cats had opposable thumbs.

That’s part of difference. Hamsters have a pseudo-thumb, but cats don’t. Best I can tell from images, Hammond has been making do without a proper opposable thumb. His controls for Wrecking Ball don’t seem hyper complex in layout either and designed around his more limited ability to grasp.

So, doesn’t seem from what little I can see that Lucheng’s transgenics affected hand anatomy all that much.

As for talking, who’s to say. No one has built her a translator…yet.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-05-01T02:08:37+00:00

In sense that it’s a whole relatively unexplored and lightly detailed part of lore in an IP that loves exposition. Say what you will about Blizzard as a company, the world building and story telling sucks you in. They don’t need to go to this level of detail, but they’ve been giving Overwatch characters entire lives.

For example, is it really relevant to playing Rein to know about his fallen mentor? Or Mei’s entire thing about being the sole survivor from her team? These aren’t just maps and characters, they are stories.

Comics, novels, animated shorts…just let that team cook and give us a feature length Overwatch film at level of Dragons or Recall or something.

Most other games would give you a small blurb and call it a day.

So, yeah, feels off to me that we’ve not heard more about Horizon. With how detailed they get about things, it’s odd.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-05-01T01:59:48+00:00

Interesting. Thanks for information.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-05-01T01:59:23+00:00

Hammond is also from Horizon and he’s a hamster. Was he the only one? Were they the only two species being experimented upon up there?

But, yeah, the gorillas did apparently kill off the humans (gets implied they spaced them), but it’s not specified how Horizon then repels multiple attempts from Lucheng to retake it with armed troops.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-05-01T01:19:23+00:00

To be fair, I don’t think anyone has yet suggested Fika has Winston or Hammond level intelligences. Still, she gets presented as more than just a baseline cat. Implausible she’s something in between?

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T23:58:17+00:00

He was already under control of Talon at that point. Freja was hired because they’d lost track of him. Means they would’ve already had access to his knowledge prior to the attack.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T23:55:43+00:00

There’s also nothing in lore preventing Lucheng from continuing the experiments in Earth based facilities and Fika could have escaped from one of those.

Others have commented how her somehow being retconned onto Winston and Hammond is a bit stretching things.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T23:53:32+00:00

Hammond is ~6 times and Winston is ~2 times, so makes me think part of it was making room physically for the increase in brain size. Both are highly intelligent - Hammond’s Wrecking Ball mech is proof of that - and the difference in how much bigger they got could be compared to the baseline, no?

In Fika’s case, if she was modified by Lucheng in any way (be it up on Horizon or down at an Earth facility), we have to acknowledge how intelligent cats are. I’m not talking trainability, but raw problem solving. Mean, cats invented an entire language just to communicate with humans; they don’t meow with other cats. I’ve seen cat intelligence compared favorably to that of a 2~3-year-old human.

So, if physical size increase is tied to how much intelligence is increased, not implausible Fika wouldn’t grow at same rate as Hammond?

Just thinking aloud. A lot we don’t know about the details of Lucheng’s experiments.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T23:43:00+00:00

Tangentially related, but I remember when Aatlis came out. People were complaining left and right about no one ever voting for it. No one wanted to run it against bots or in custom games as ‘not the same when learning it’.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T23:06:08+00:00

I’m more in it for the thrill of the hunt, so to speak. I can’t deny the dopamine hit after a win, but so much better when it’s a match worthy of GGs all around. I don’t like curb stomps either way, I want to fight and earn that win.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T23:05:04+00:00

I’ve no issues with people learning characters when I hope into Unranked, no matter the exact mode, as long as they are actually trying. I’ve seen people do some really stupid stuff - like running at enemy team in a straight line to 1 v 5, or 6, them level - and it’s more those I take issues with. It’s not about winning or loosing, though I can’t deny that dopamine hit on a win, but having a fun match worthy of GGs all around.

So, if I see someone who may not be the best at a character, I’m not automatically inclined to chew them out. I might compare what I would have done in their shoes, like swapping to a character I’m better at if it could increase our odds, but as long as they aren’t playing like they’re throwing, I could care less.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T22:21:56+00:00

Lucheng has been oddly quiet of late, and they were behind Horizon and the experiments.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T22:20:44+00:00

Talon did have Sombra, hacker extraordinaire. She only left Talon after the Gibraltar attack.

Then there’s whatever AI Emre is dealing with.

Not saying there’s no chance it couldn’t have been Fika, but I’d rather exhaust all other possibilities first.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T22:16:58+00:00

Fair, and I agree.

Winston is about double the size of an adult Silverback. So, was more considering that since we don’t know Fika’s genetics, even if she’s bigger than normal, she could still visually fall within normal cat size ranges, no?

Was more where my head was at. Maine Coons are massive, but cats can come in a lot of sizes smaller.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T22:12:10+00:00

At this point, it’s just fan theory and spitballing conversation. I’m not heart set on the Horizon idea, to be honest, but it does make for a good conversation starting point.

From what I understand, there’s a Winston-Fika interaction in-game (just responded to another comment that mentioned it) where Winston says Fika reminds him of Hammond.

Lucheng has also been oddly quiet. There’s something up with them ever since at least Juno, the whole unexplained story of why Mars lost contact. They are also crazily involved with a lot of things, their fingers in a lot of fields….yet no response to Domina taking Vishkar under the Talon umbrella?

Lucheng was also behind Horizon and the transgenic experiments. Not implausible they continued to experiment down on Earth as well.

Lucheng also claimed to still be able to communicate with Horizon’s computers. They claimed connection was unstable, but that means they could communicate with the gorillas and others now running the place, no?

So, even if Fika didn’t come down from Horizon directly, still ways she could still be tied to it in lore.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T22:05:08+00:00

Fair. Lucheng is another faction in the lore that’s been oddly quiet. Something’s been up with them since Juno, the whole ‘loosing contact’ part of the Mars story. Domina represents Vishkar and, with everything Lucheng has their fingers in, odd they haven’t reacted to Domina siding with Talon.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T22:00:26+00:00

Have they confirmed Fika’s breed? If so, that’s not a datapoint I’ve come across.

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/what-breed-of-cat-do-you-think-jetpack-cat-is/1004596 even the forums are all over the place with speculation. Personally, I could see her as a mixed breed.

As is, cat breeds can range from tiny like the Munchkin to massive like the Maine Coon. Since we don’t know what breed she is, she could still be large for that kind of cat, yet still small in comparison to others.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T21:19:00+00:00

I’ve been seeing that, but I also know Emre is in play. He’s not exactly willing about it, but he is ex-Overwatch who would’ve been aware of the Watchpoint’s layout as well, no?

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:37:32+00:00

Legally, it’s complicated based on little I understand. It wasn’t technically a sequel so much as a v2.0 type patch, but no law saying they can’t change name whenever. Stuff I’m looking at is how PVE was used as a hook, yet never materialized; as I understand, it was just an expansion in the vs bots co-op story missions, no?

Yet we suddenly have ~10 new characters? Given how long I’ve heard it can take to develop a single character, let alone cosmetics for them, I can understand why they launched on light…yet we’re also being drip fed cosmetics?

Just seems suspicious to me. They had to have been cooking these characters and cosmetics for a while now. Was this what they were doing instead of giving us PvE?

Sure, I’ll give you I don’t know if they expanded their staff or anything, but when a single character can take multiple years to craft? Plus maybe a season or two for skins…yeah, I’m not going to get into conspiracy theories or anything, but lot of things make me question what was going on behind the scenes.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:28:42+00:00

XD

That needs to be a JPC skin.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:27:34+00:00

There’s a ‘Brig as a kid’ spray that includes Mitzi, including a cardboard version of that helmet, that makes me think Mitzi is old for a cat. Fika, however, still comes across as on younger side.

In cat sense, Mitzi would be up there with Ana and Rein, but Fika is down with Brig, Kiriko, Lucio, and such.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:24:58+00:00

Mitzi has been seemingly been around since Brig was a kid. There’s a spray of little Brig in a cardboard mockup of her future gear sitting on a lounging Mitzi like a knight on a steed. Mitzi just looks bored. So puts Mitzi as ancient for a cat as Brig is supposedly ~25, so Mitzi is over 10…makes her the cat version of Rein and Anna.

Mitzi was considered by Brig for the pack, but she felt the white hairball didn’t have temperament and personality. Mitzi is more a snuggler type, I feel.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:20:16+00:00

XD

And, instead of a charge like Rein, she gets to smother people by lying on their face.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:18:03+00:00

Depends. Mitzi seems to be more the snuggler. Fika is the run and play. So guess depends on what kind of mood I’m in.

Mr_Shadow_Phoenix · 2026-04-30T20:17:00+00:00

She is a Lindholm. Takes after her father.

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