One of last year’s Overwatch shorts, “Hero,” centers on Soldier: 76—but for many, a girl named Alejandra stole the show.
Alejandra is independent. She is no longer a child, but she’s not quite old enough to hold her own in a dangerous city like Dorado. The Los Muertos gang causes trouble across the city—jumping omnics and stealing money. Alejandra herself is the target of a Los Muertos robbery during the “Hero” short, only to be saved by Solider: 76.
Fan theories have speculated that “Hero” takes place in the past—and that Alejandra is the Mexican hacker Sombra before she earns her new identity. Dorado’s LumeriCo ziggurat isn’t visable in the short film, which was a perceived hint that many suggested meant the short took place years before Overwatch’s in-game timeline. If it were, Sombra could have once been Alejandra.
Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu swept into the Overwatch forum to shut that theory down, however. “‘Hero’ takes place in the ‘present’ (close to the time the game happens),” Chu wrote. “I think it just happens with how the first shot moves across Dorado that it just misses framing the LumeriCo power plant in the background.”
If that’s not enough for some fans, Chu decided to just spell it out: “I don’t recommend trusting Sombra’s words and stories too much, but she isn’t Alejandra,” he wrote.
So Alejandra isn’t Sombra. But who is she? Time to mine Overwatch for new clues.
