#easter-egg

Papilio ulysses, that’s the easter egg. Ulysses is the roman name of Odysseus, the hero of the ancient greek epic poem by Homer, the Odyssey.

Long story short, in the Odyssey the greek army is at war with city of Troy and they manage to capture Troy using the stratagem of the Trojan Horse , which was Ulysses/Odysseus’ idea. Also, Ulysses/Odysseus was the human champion of the goddess of wisdom Athena at that time (she likes having human champions that she helps as long as they remain virtuous) and Overwatch’s Athena seems particularly worried about what is happening in Ilios, Ilios being the only map (the other two being Nepal and Lijiang Tower) where she lets players know a bit about why they’re here. On Ilios, we’re here because of Talon activity in the area, Athena thinks they’re after the recently unearthed artifacts (the statues of Athena, Hera and Aphrodite).

Now what’s the link between the Trojan Horse and Ilios? Well, another name for the city of Troy back then was Ilios.

*mindblown gif*

The Ilios butterflies, modeled after a species with bright blue wings (aka, the anti camouflage color), are the same color as the plants they fly around, making them really hard to notice (they’ve been around since launch, I’ve checked old footage, but no almost no one knows about them). Almost like they’re camouflaged, waiting for the right time to strike, like the soldiers inside the Trojan Horse of old, ready to take the city of Troy.  Which has me thinking the future greek hero of Overwatch could have some kind of camouflage ability, nothing like Sombra’s, more like actual camouflage that only works as long as you’re static even if you’re hiding in plain sight, Trojan Horse style. Idk, this is wild speculation.

There are pink, yellow and red flowers on Ilios, but only pink and yellow butterflies, no red butterflies for some reason.

Ilios is based on the greek island of Santorini and the pink flowers we see everywhere on the maps are very likely based on the real species bougainvillea which is found everywhere on Santorini. However bougainvillea is not native to the island, it comes from the rainforests of South America, Santorini being an arid volcanic island with 90% of its flora being dry bushes. Papilio ulysses isn’t native to Santorini either, it comes from the rainforests of Australia, Indonesia and other nearby tropical islands, it wouldn’t survive in the arid climate of Santorini (almost no native flowers on the island and way too dry anyway).

I think the developers picked this species solely for the easter egg, unless it’s a clue about the state of climate change in the world of Overwatch, allowing tropical butterfly species to survive in the dry mediterranean climate. Who knows...

Phew that was a lot of links to click on, I hope you’re not too mad about that :3

I hope you clicked on the first three links, they’re kind of important, if you haven’t, go do it now :D

That’s all I have on the Ilios Butterflies, I hope you liked it and will spread the word about them (and remember that you need to put the graphic setting called “effects” on medium at least, they don’t appear at all on low) !

They’re cute, they deserve to be noticed :D

If you’re open minded and if you enjoy wasting time hunting for the many obscure things the devs have put in the world of Overwatch, I have an all new discord server :D