Season 1 Rise of Talon: Complete Mission Walkthrough & Story Guide

Season 1 kicked off the Reign of Talon arc and honestly it's the most narratively ambitious thing Blizzard has done with Overwatch. Six PvE missions, each advancing a real plot. I played through the whole thing twice ... once solo, once with a group ... and the group experience is way better, especially for the later missions.

The setup (what you need to know before playing)

The season opens with a cutscene that sets the tone for everything. Vendetta, an Italian gladiator who clawed her way through Talon's ranks, challenges Doomfist for leadership. And she wins. Not a close fight either ... she slices off his mechanical arm and throws him off the Talon council. It's brutal. I watched it three times and it still hits.

Vendetta's philosophy is different from Doomfist's. He believed in conflict as a catalyst for evolution. Vendetta just wants to conquer. She allies Talon with the Deadlock Rebels and the Hashimoto clan, then recruits ex-Overwatch agents Emre and Freja to her side. The opening cutscene ends with her declaring open war, and the first PvE mission drops you straight into the chaos. No warmup, no tutorial popup, just Vendetta's forces pouring through the defenses.

Mission 1: Gibraltar Under Siege

This is an escort-turned-defense mission and it's where Overwatch loses Watchpoint Gibraltar. You start escorting a supply convoy through the rock, but halfway through Talon forces breach the perimeter and it becomes a holdout.

You defend the command center for 8 minutes against waves of Talon infantry, Deadlock mercenaries, and Hashimoto ninjas. The enemy composition mixes every fight so you can't just run the same counter all game. I found myself constantly swapping strategies between waves because the threat profile completely changes.

When it ends, Overwatch is forced to evacuate. You're covering the escape ships, and the final 90 seconds is pure panic as Vendetta herself appears in the command center. You can't beat her. You're not supposed to. Winston calls the retreat and Gibraltar falls. That first time watching the base crumble felt like a gut punch, not gonna lie.

I failed this mission twice before realizing you need to rotate between the three defense points rather than camping one. The Deadlock snipers on the high ground will shred you if you don't clear them between waves. Took me way too long to figure that out.

Mission 2: Recruiting Freja

This one's a flashback, technically taking place before Gibraltar. You play as Emre and Vendetta approaching Freja, a former Overwatch sniper who went underground after the Petras Act. It's mostly dialogue and exploration through a rain-soaked Norwegian village, with one combat encounter against Overwatch security forces at the end.

Not much gameplay here but the voice acting is fantastic. Freja's hesitation about rejoining any organization feels genuine, not like video game acting at all. The mission ends with her agreeing to meet Vendetta, which sets up her appearance in later seasons. I'm pretty sure she'll be a playable hero in Season 3 based on the post-credits tease.

Mission 3: The Deadlock Alliance

Full combat mission set in the Arizona desert. Talon is negotiating with the Deadlock Rebels and Overwatch intercepts the meeting. You fight both Talon and Deadlock forces simultaneously, which creates some genuinely chaotic crossfire moments.

The boss fight at the end is against Ashe and B.O.B. on a moving train. B.O.B. has new abilities in PvE that make him way scarier than his multiplayer version. He has a ground slam that covers half the train car and a charge attack that'll one-shot squishies. First time his ground slam wiped three of us at once I just sat there staring at the kill feed.

What worked for me was bringing a Bruiser tank (Domina shuts down B.O.B. hard, like surprisingly hard) and a Tactician support (Emre's tethers keep everyone alive through the chaos). Ashe herself isn't difficult once B.O.B. goes down. The train setting adds this claustrophobic intensity that the other missions don't have and I kind of wish more bosses used environmental constraints like this.

Mission 4: Hashimoto Infiltration

Stealth mission, and tbh a welcome change of pace. You infiltrate a Hashimoto stronghold in Japan to gather intel on their alliance with Talon. If you trigger alarms, enemy waves get progressively harder until you're overwhelmed. No coming back from a blown stealth run.

The key is splitting your team. Two players create a distraction at the front gate while two sneak through the underground passage. The underground path has motion sensors that require crouch-walking past them. It's tense in a way Overwatch PvE rarely is. My heart was actually pounding during the motion sensor sections.

There's a secret room in the basement with lore documents about the Hashimoto clan's history. Worth finding if you care about the story. There are probably other hidden rooms in the other missions too, stuff the community is still discovering.

Mission 5: Watchpoint Grand Mesa

The hardest mission in Season 1 and I'm not exaggerating. Another defense holdout, but this time you're defending an Overwatch outpost against Talon's full assault. It's Mission 1 on steroids. More waves, tougher enemies, and a mid-mission twist where Emre shows up and his anchor tethers start healing the enemy Talon forces. That twist caught me so off guard.

You need a coordinated team for this one. My first clear took six attempts. Six. The winning comp was Reinhardt, Mizuki (for backline pressure), Widowmaker (for picking off Deadlock snipers at range), and Ana (anti-nade on the heavy Talon units wins fights).

Grand Mesa falls at the end, just like Gibraltar. That's two bases lost in one season. The narrative isn't pulling punches and honestly I respect that. Most games would let you win one back by now.

Mission 6: The Counterattack

The season finale, and it delivers. Overwatch launches a desperation strike on a Talon supply depot in the Mediterranean. If you completed the previous five missions, you get a special cutscene at the start where Winston gives a speech that's genuinely moving. Like, actually emotional, not video game emotional.

The mission itself is a straight fight through warehouses, a dock, and then a cargo ship. The end boss is a Talon heavy mech (not Vendetta ... she's being saved for later seasons, smartly). After destroying it, you recover intelligence about Talon's next target: something called Project Ascension.

The post-mission cutscene reveals that Talon is planning Project Ascension for Season 3, and Overwatch gets a new ally in the form of a previously neutral hero. I won't spoil who but longtime lore fans will lose their minds.

What carries over between seasons

Your PvE progress doesn't reset, which is nice. All cosmetics and achievements earned in Season 1 stay permanently. Battle pass progress resets obviously, but your PvE mission clears are tracked forever.

The narrative choices you make unlock dialogue variations in future seasons. Finding the Hashimoto lore in Mission 4, clearing missions deathless, choosing certain hero comps ... these all seem to matter somehow. It's not Mass Effect levels of branching but your completionism is rewarded with extra character moments, and that's more than OW2 ever did.

That's all six missions. There's definitely stuff I haven't covered here ... secret dialogue triggers, hidden achievements, optimal speedrun routes. The community is still finding new things a month after launch. If Season 1 is this dense, I can't imagine what they have planned for the five seasons still coming.