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purplekoop · 10 months

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Alright, let's break it down:

Overwatch Figure Collecting: the somewhat definitive breakdown

If you're a fan of Overwatch and want a cool way to showcase your love of its characters without actually playing the video game (a very fair predicament), then my utmost recommendation would be to get your hands on some of the variety of fantastic poseable figures available for... a good majority of the cast.

See there's one hang-up when it comes to collecting just about any cast of characters from an existing franchise in physical form, especially one as large and varied as Overwatch's: not every character gets to be in every lineup. While some get close, as of now there isn't a single series of figures that contains every single Overwatch hero, even just from the original lineup from the initial 2016 release.

To help alleviate this as much as possible, I've charted out every single current character (meaning this is a week away from being at least somewhat dated) to try and find the best option available for every character if you want a collection of figures designed around a 1/12th scale collection. If you're not familiar with the term, this scale means every inch of figure is equivalent to one foot of a life-sized character. These figures also tend to be called 6-inch figures, since most action figures in this scale are designed around fictional dudes that are around 6 feet tall. This is the standard scale for most modern action figure lines, such as Marvel Legends, meaning it fits the best with the most other lines of figures. This'll be helpful for when we have to mix figure lines, since it provides a standardized base with only slight deviations between the lines.

I'd also like to clarify: This will only be a discussion of figures, with at least one point of articulation. Yes, that low bar is important for later. This does still rule out several things that I don't feel fit this type of collection, such as keychains, other minor collectables the ungodly overpriced statues on the official Blizzard store.

All that said, let's start with my favorite Overwatch figure series, and my highest recommendation, especially for a beginner collector like myself:

Hasbro's Overwatch Ultimates series

Released in 2019, the Ultimates series is a line of figures produced by American toy juggernaut Hasbro. Hasbro has a long but somewhat shaky track record of making 6 inch figures, being particularly infamous for the aforementioned Marvel Legends line, a massive collection of Marvel figures that have a somewhat negative stigma among hardcore collectors for cheaper production value relative to their $25 USD price point.

Those complaints however are much harder to carry over to the Ultimates as far as I'm concerned. Every single character looks fantastic and extremely game-accurate, packed with detail and accessories, making them both great display pieces and fun to just play around with.

The line was released in two waves, each consisting of both individual character boxes and two packs. Each character came out at about 20 USD, with two packs predictably being about 40 USD. Reinhardt is a bigger figure in a big box, so he costs a bit extra, but you can find him for decent prices still.

Wave 1 consisted of Tracer, Sombra, Lucio, Reaper*, and Reinhardt individually, with two packs consisting of Pharah+Mercy (teehee) and Soldier 76+Ana*.

Wave 2 introduced Zarya, Junkrat, and Cassidy individually, and a two pack of Genji and Hanzo. It also has several recolors, with the only notable one for here being a 4-pack of Genji, Zarya, Pharah, and D.va, all featuring Carbon Fiber/Midnight skins.

So. Slight hiccup: Reaper, Ana, and D.va don't get their default skins in this line. Reaper only has Blackwatch Reyes look (seen above), Ana has her Shrike design (her masked vigilante look), and D.va only has the Midnight skin. She also doesn't come with her Meka, in addition to not being available by herself in-box. Reaper and D.va have alternatives that are higher quality and have the default skins, but Ana's only 6 inch figure is the Shrike design, so it's unfortunately my best recommendation.

From here, we're gonna keep a running total of how many characters we have figures for. I'm only going to keep a total of Overwatch 1's roster of 32 heroes, since OW2's new heroes have next to nothing as of now.

So with the Ultimates line, we have 12 characters with their default skins, but 3 more if you're willing to accept an alternative skin as a substitute, bringing us a "generous" total of 15 out of 32. Already almost halfway there!

If I didn't make it clear already, I highly recommend the Ultimates line, it's super affordable for such a good quality set of figures. I said before each figure was priced at 20 USD MSRP, but especially with online secondhand listings, the average is really closer to 15 per figure. Thanks to listings of multiple figures (called a "lot" if you're looking for them on those sites), you can pretty easily find multiple figures bundled together for less than they tend to be individually. Personally speaking, I've gotten 3 separate lots for less than 150 USD total, and already have the majority of the unique figures, and most of the extra recolors to boot. Seriously, don't slouch on this line, the value of what you get for what you paid is great. Just don't expect to find too many of them in physical retail stores, but maybe nab them if you manage to get lucky and find one for a good price.

But if you want something that's a bit higher quality in exchange for a higher price point, while still roughly fitting in with the Hasbro line, then that brings us to our next set of figures

Good Smile's Figma

Good Smile is a Japanese company that makes high-quality collectibles based on a variety of franchises, primarily anime and games. Their Figma line consists of 6 inch scale figures with extremely high-quality detail, extensive articulation, and tons of accessories to enable a variety of poses.

...If your first instinct as a collector is "wow, that sounds like it'll be really expensive!", then good job, you'd be correct! Between production costs and the extra complications of importing from another country, Figmas are pretty pricey to come by.

But what of their Overwatch offerings? Well...

We have 10 figures total here, 6 of which are familiar faces. Tracer, Genji, Pharah, Mercy, Soldier 76 (though he seems rare, don't count on finding him easily), and the cowboy guy are all here if you want a premium alternative to the Hasbro line for those heroes. For the extra money, you get better sculpting detail, better and more thorough paint jobs, more articulation, and more accessories, including better quality weapons, more hand poses, and even alternate face swaps. You can also take off Pharah's helmet or the cowboy's hat. These are substantial improvements, which... you'd hope for with the money, but whether they're worth it compared to the Ultimates alternatives is really up to you.

Speaking of alternates though, we get to the default skins for D.va and Reaper that I alluded to earlier. Reaper is about all you could hope for, while D.va comes with more accessories like a can of Nano Cola, her hat from the Shooting Star cinematic, and... still no Meka.

We do have some new faces here too: Widowmaker and Zenyatta. Both of which are fantastic figures with tons of accessories... and also the Figma price tag in full swing. Zen in particular I've rarely seen listed for less than 100 USD. He's probably my most wanted but least likely to get soon official figure.

So, back to our running total, we can add 2 more brand new figures, and also get to add the default designs for Reaper and D.va, making our generous total 17 of 32, and if we feel like being mean to Ana then we're at 16/32, exactly halfway.

And if we stick exclusively to official 6 inch scale figures... that's where the list stays.

But if we're willing to bend our expectations a bit, then we can look into some alternative options, starting with Good Smile's smaller scale line...

Good Smile's Nendoroids

Nendoroids are Good Smile's smaller figure line, featuring chibi designs of a wider range of characters, but with the general production value you'd expect from Good Smile, with the details and accessories not far from the Figma line. According to the website, most go for about 45 USD from the start, but secondhand listings may vary. The figures are on average about 10 cm, or about 4 inches for my fellow americans. They definitely don't fit exactly into our collection, but let's look at what's on offer for Overwatch anyways:

15 figures total, the majority of which we've already seen before in a more proper scale.

With that said, I do want to point out a special note with one hero here we've seen before:

We finally got a Tokki!!! Designed so D.va can fit into it and everything!!

...Sold separately. For. A lot. I haven't seen many listings either, so don't get your hopes up too high for nabbing this one.

As for the others, we have 3 heroes we haven't seen yet: Mei, Torbjorn, and a surprising appearance from Ashe, the newest hero we've seen so far. All of these come packed with accessories, including... B.OB.!

Well. I didn't say you get all of him.

Now, getting a high-quality item for Ashe is cool, but the real highlight of the line for me is Torbjorn. He comes loaded with articulation like a movable welding mask, and tons of accessories including an articulated turret, and even an armor pack from before his rework! The real reason I mention him though is. Well. It's Torbjorn. Aside from the one anime eye and some slightly off proportions, he's not gonna be too far off from what you'd want from Torb in a 6 inch scale. Better than the solution on my shelf currently at least, but we'll get there.

So, again, this line isn't exactly what this kind of collection is for, but if you want high production value, good accessories, and a better (but still a bit high) price point than the Figmas, then I think these would be a nice addition to the collection, if you don't mind a couple heroes being a bit on the stubbier side than usual.

Adding these to our gratuitous estimate, we're up to a clean 20/32 heroes! Not too bad, but there's one more note I'd like to touch on here before we move on to the last set of "figures" I'm gonna go over.

We've actually gotten confirmation that nendoroids for Kiriko and Sojourn are on the way!

Kiriko looks to be coming sooner, which makes sense considering. Japan. But hey! Cool to see OW2 heroes get something!

But to round out our cast of OW1 heroes... I dunno. I think we might have to take some... drastic measures.

Funko pops.

I don't think Funko Pops need as much of an introduction as the other stuff we've talked about today. The menace of every fandom-pandering mall store, it's hard to like anything even tangentially nerdy without one of these blank-eyed menaces taking the semblance of its cast.

Now, okay, these barely quantify as "figures". Even most dedicated Funko Pop collectors would be self aware enough to admit that. But remember my "one point of articulation" rule from earlier? Well. You can move the head around. That's. Something.

The main reason we're here though is that we're getting desperate. We've got 12 more characters to find, and have already ran out of actually decent figure lines with more characters. If they don't have a Funko of the character, they don't have anything for 'em.

And well, good news: almost every OW1 hero has a Funko Pop! And not only that, they're some pretty above-average Funkos to boot. Not just in quality, but even size for a few of them. Bastion, Roadhog, Winston, Orisa, and Wrecking Ball are all 6 inch "super size" pops, which at least helps them feel a little more in line than just the standard 3.5 inch ones. There's also pops of Symmetra, Doomfist, Moira, Brigitte, Baptiste, and even Echo. Every other hero we've already discussed also has one too. Even B.O.B. has a 6 inch funko! Currently the only one I have is Torb, who's on my Overwatch shelf as a rough proximity to scale with the others.

There's also more skin variants than I care to count, including OW2 variants for Tracer, Genji, Reaper, and Cassidy.

But yeah, add those new heroes up, and that brings us to... ...31.

31 out of Overwatch 1's cast of 32 heroes has a Funko Pop or other, higher-quality figure.

If you haven't been keeping a head count, that leaves Sigma out as the only one with nothing.

Don't feel too bad for him though, he's got every single Overwatch 2 hero keeping him company. Sojourn and Kiriko included, but at least they've got Nendoroids confirmed on the way. If you're curious why they skipped him but not Echo, it's because Echo is in a small wave of Overwatch 2 branded pops.

Now, if you feel like I've been too kind to Funko here, I'm gonna fix that real quick, because there's one more officially licensed series of figures right now. Good news, they're actual, non-chibi figures.

Bad news?

Funko's Overwatch 2 Action Figures

If you ever want to know what it sounds like to have a wet fart in Action Figure form, then pick up one of these things.

Other than featuring the Overwatch 2 designs, making them the only real poseable figures to do so right now, these things are completely worthless. First off, they're 3.75 inch scale, noticeably smaller than either of the other proper figure lines. They're also much, much, MUCH lower quality, not just in terms of looks (the style for Tracer's face makes me mad) and lacking accessories, but just general production quality. I've heard it's EXTREMELY common for limbs to be so loose on these things, the legs tend to fall out.

they're... technically at a lower price point. But they're still such mediocre figures, I can't in good faith recommend these to basically anyone. Get the decent pops like Bastion or Orisa instead if you for some reason insist on giving Funko money, at least those won't literally fall apart on you.

So, I said earlier Funko was our last stop, but there's one more thing I want to gloss over that some of you might've been thinking about already

Lego Overwatch

I didn't bring these up earlier since They don't quite count, and they feel like they warrant a full separate post once I get my hands on some of them where I can go into more detail, but Overwatch has a variety of Lego sets, featuring a good chunk of the cast in minifigure form, and some of the cast in a form that's slightly less "Mini", with Winston and Roadhog being special "bigfigs".

Reinhardt and D.va come in a set together featuring their armor and Meka respectively as the main builds of the set. It does mean that Rein outside of the armor is disturbingly normal size relative to the rest of the cast, but hey, cool builds aside from that. Hoping to get these soon actually.

I don't know how well these measure up to scale with the proper figures, but I wouldn't count on them fitting with anything besides the Lego sets, and in that context they look a little too big, but it's whatever.

Wrecking Ball also has a buildable mech, again not counting on it to scale great with the non-lego figures, but it's a fun-looking set still.

Going even bigger though, and we reach Lego Bastion.

Yeah this is why that cross promotion skin exists. It's a buildable Lego Bastion! It transforms! It's so massive it might actually fit close enough to the 6 inch scale! Ganymede looks... less than great, but hey, I'm not complaining too much besides that!

Obviously it's not DX9 Freeman (again, check my last post), but it's still really neat, hoping to get my mitts on this one soon too.

So... yeah! There's my breakdown of every major official series of Overwatch figures. Hopefully this helps someone out there get a better idea of what's all available and how complete of a collection they can expect to get. Again, I highly recommend the Hasbro Ultimates series, but really just get whatever you want with your budget and quality standards as a collector. If you get all the Funkos, reskins included, then hey, more power to you. Or if you just think this is neat and have no intent on actually buying any of this stuff, then I hope this rambling was at least entertaining.

(also I accidentally lost the Figma and Nendoroid sections of the post before needing to retype them so yeah this post took way too long to make, so seriously, thanks if you made it through this far.)

#overwatch #overwatch figures #figure collecting #action figures #action figure collecting #long post #like. wow it's long.

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segadores-y-soldados · 7 years

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Blizzard’s shitshow of a timeline, part 2: The Reapening

Alternate title: Blizzard’s shitshow of a timeline: 2 Reap 2 Furious

De vuelta a segar, pendejos - let’s get this shit DONE.

If you want a hook, HAVE ONE:

"Other than really broad things like the Omnic Crisis and big historical moments, in many ways, we're kind of making this up as we go," said Metzen, explaining that they haven't built out every little detail beforehand. "With this one, I think we're taking our time and not trying to get too far ahead of it."

Alright, so it’s fucking LATE so forgive me if I make a bunch of spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

Let’s talk a little bit more about design - once again, about game design vs. story design vs. character design.

In the other essay, I brought up the fact that there were a number of inconsistencies with Reaper from the original “Overwatch Cinematic Trailer” (the one from November 7, 2014). I talked mainly about the fact that Reaper used an ability - a pipe bomb launcher - that eventually got reworked into Junkrat’s toolkit and how current Reaper is not the same as the Reaper that appeared in the short, mainly in terms of gameplay...but also even some aspects of character design.

I briefly mentioned the fact that Reaper features very pale skin and not the skintone that made it to the final game (which is like...a weird grey color. *stares into the camera like the Office*)

So I want to be very clear, 100% clear - and please, I’m begging you, please hear me out -

Please keep Metzen’s quote in mind -

This character

Is not Gabriel Reyes.

NOT AS YOU KNOW HIM. NOT AS WHAT HE IS RIGHT NOW.

THIS IS BASICALLY PROTO-GABRIEL REYES.

Please bear with me, it’s gonna be a long ride, I promise, I will try to deliver.

Taking it from the top:

In the Overwatch Cinematic Trailer/Museum Heist video, there are a few main things to consider:

The gameplay was not set in stone - this is shown by Reaper using an ability that would eventually get worked into another character, Junkrat.

The character designs are not set in stone - Reaper has pale skin, McCree has pale skin and blue eyes, and Tracer’s design underwent minor tweaks before release.

The “story” of Overwatch was not set in stone - and that extends to the vast majority of the character arcs.

I’m gonna propose that it basically did not even exist.

http://overwatch.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2014-overwatch-unveiled-panel-transcript

Here is a direct transcript of the “Overwatch reveal” from BlizzCon 2014 - originally held on Nov 7, 2014.

I’m not gonna quote the whole thing, but basically a few things are revealed:

[Metzen: The story goes that– [how do I do this? The math is a little weird] If the present day of “Overwatch”, is something like 60 years in the future then, “Whoot”, thirty years back from that point, there was a global crisis. And of course, it was robots, and robots are just bad for everybody.]

(I feel fucking vindicated for all the “math” I did last time)

[Metzen: the nations decided to pool their resources and put together a strike force of the best of-the best of-the best technologies and soldiers from different nations around the world and that was the original Overwatch Strike team.

And this strike team did great. It took out the [not going to spoil it] whatever was causing the OMNIC CRISIS, and they handedly dealt with it, and they saved the world. And the world loved it. And so, for the next thirty years this strike force really becomes an institution.]

Notice the lack of names, or hell, even the lack of “numbers” of these soldiers (that wasn’t meant to be a pun but honhonhon).

Because that DOES lead to the next point:

Soldier: 76 may or may not have existed in November 2014.

There are certainly artworks of “Jack Morrison” all throughout the Cinematic Trailer - there’s the art of him leading some small child out of the rubble, there’s his statue in the background of the museum, so yeah - some sort of “Captain America-knock off” character was implied all over the place in the Trailer.

But here’s the thing:

Soldier: 76 was not shown at Blizzcon 2014. And the entire concept of the character of “Jack Morrison” wasn’t even mentioned.

Only twelve characters were showcased at Blizzcon 2014:

[Metzen: So that is the twelve we came with this weekend. Like we said, there are many-many more to come. It’s one of the funniest parts of Overwatch– is getting kinda to work with the team to get these characters, how they interrelate and who goes back with who, and who went to college with who, and who has (???) in a longstanding. It’s super-super fun stuff. I hope you have enjoyed at least a quick look of our growing pantheon of characters.]

I would like to point out that there are two characters here who don’t even have “real faces” - Reaper and Reinhardt.

In fact, I’d argue that they probably did not have real character designs for another few months, along with two other “major Omnic Crisis characters” - Soldier: 76 and Ana Amari.

There are no pictures of Reinhardt without his helmet, Ana Amari, or - and this is the point - Gabriel Reyes at all during the Cinematic Trailer/Museum Heist. And while the character who eventually became “Jack Morrison” existed, he had no name, and was largely just...window dressing to stamp on the lore.

And maybe this is pushing it -

But I suspect that Reaper didn’t even have a real background at this point in time:

[Metzen: We have the enigmatic Reaper. Reaper is just a bad man. No one knows too much about Reaper, but his hellfire shotguns. They are kind of feared throughout the world, and hotspots and divine places around the world. This guy shows up and makes things worse always.]

There’s a word here - it starts with “d” and ends with “-ecades” that is distinctly missing from this character description. In contrast, Reinhardt does have the barest sketch of a character backstory - he’s noted as being “one of the of original Overwatch strike force” - and Ana is very briefly hinted at in Pharah’s description (“[Fareeha’s] mother was a part of Overwatch, and she always really wanted to be a part of it but by the time she graduated from the academy Overwatch was gone.”)

In fact, it’s directly stated that Reaper was developed almost 100% from a gameplay standpoint before anything else.

[“We built the four core combat heroes, which were Tracer, Reaper, Widowmaker, and… well it was supposed to be Mercy or Reinhardt. Then everyone was falling in love with Pharah…” - Michael Heiberg]

[“Reaper and Widowmaker and Tracer, we knew what they looked like from the get-go. They were very concept driven. Pharah was different.” - Tim Ford]

[“That was actually a really solid foundation. Widowmaker, Pharah, Reaper, Tracer… a really great core set of characters that helped a lot on the level design, to be able to understand what these characters were able to do.” - Dave Adams]

All of the above quotes come from the Special Edition artbook.

Of the four “core combat characters,” Tracer’s story was the most extensive at the time of the panel, with possibly Pharah’s next and then arguably Widowmaker before Reaper.

Now, those of you who know Blizzard better than me already know that a lot of this is pretty much speculation - Soldier: 76 has basically been Metzen’s “original character” for years (... “decades” - seriously, go look him up if you need a laugh). If anything, just as how Reaper was created “purely from a gameplay standpoint,” Soldier: 76 was created from “only a story standpoint” - his gameplay mechanics had to be filled in later, after the core combat characters proved they could work. It’s likely that the “Overwatch Soldier: 76” existed - as in, name, biography, story, etc, - but mainly in concept form. The Overwatch version of Soldier: 76 would not be fully revealed until July 2015 - at that point he had a name, a face, a personal history, and “a vendetta.”

But that was also when three other characters had their art revealed as well:

If someone wants to correct me on this, feel free, but essentially the entire “story” of the original Overwatch team was publically revealed in a span of like...two days, July 6-7, 2015. This is the first time that “Gabriel Reyes” is even mentioned as a name.

And that brings me back to the main point:

["Other than really broad things like the Omnic Crisis and big historical moments, in many ways, we're kind of making this up as we go," said Metzen, explaining that they haven't built out every little detail beforehand. "With this one, I think we're taking our time and not trying to get too far ahead of it."]

http://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-story-chris-metzen-interview/

This comes from an interview with both Christ Metzen and Michael Chu where they essentially confirm that the details of Overwatch and its characters are created in an “off the cuff” fashion. The article was posted in December 2015, a few months after the “story” of the Fall of Overwatch had been revealed to the public.

It’s also the first time that the story developers imply that Reaper is Reyes.

[Metzen: But yeah, I think if the characters call for it, we have certain kind of relationship dynamics that could bubble up. There's a lot of history between 76 and Reaper, it's a little more foreground than the two ninjas. But I think we want to chase those when we see them—points of connection that birth a lot of cool story. Whether it feels like it's foreground or not, the story's the story, and I think we always want to stay open to those types of things.]

So I mean this in a very cut-and-dry way:

It’s extremely likely that the story of Gabriel Reyes was “given” to Reaper to fill out the “core combat character” and give him a place in the world of Overwatch.

We know that Reaper underwent further gameplay and stylistic designs - most notably, his “early concept” pale skintone was changed to some weird grey color (??). And while other aspects of his Reaper design did not change much, nothing points to him having an “unmasked face” until the first picture of the Overwatch First Strike team shows up. Soldier: 76 has a true “face model” underneath his tactical visor, and Reinhardt was eventually given a number of skins without his helmet on. Reaper, meanwhile, only has the “Blackwatch Reyes” still as his “unmasked” skin and - as far as I can find - no one has been able to take the Reaper mask off the character model itself.

To add to this point - that Reaper was pretty much a “blank slate” in both unmasked design and story:

[“There were two ways heroes came about. One was basically that Arnold Tsang would draw a cool picture of a hero we’d want to play, and design would figure out how to make that a reality. And then there was the opposite, where design had the desire to fill out a gameplay niche first, and the art would come later. The that we had that push in both directions at once, that creative mind-meld, it was really neat to see.” - Lee Sparks]

http://overwatch.blizzplanet.com/blog/comments/blizzcon-2014-overwatch-origins-panel-transcript

Another Blizzcon 2014 panel, featuring Chris Metzen (SVP Story and Franchise Development), Jeff Chamberlain (VFX Supervisor), Jeff Kaplan (game director), Bill Petras (art director) and Arnold Tsang (Lead Character Concept Artist).

[Metzen: You guys have seen the art at the beginning of the trailer, that’s kind of Arn’s house style so we’ve really just been trying to keep pace with Arn and we’ve really been enjoying this new art style, this fresh new take; I mean how many of you saw that trailer yesterday?]

Tsang drew the art for the Cinematic Trailer.

[Metzen: As we were kinda getting the art style together, as we were defining the game at a more distilled level we started working on these universe ideas and this intro cinematic really, really early, like way earlier than we normally would engage on a normal project like that at that point in development and Jeff and his team were instrumental in helping us find the style that translates between the reality of the game world and the reality of the cinematic expression.]

Oh.

Hang on.

[Metzen: this intro cinematic really, really early, like way earlier than we normally would engage on a normal project like that at that point in development]

[Metzen: really, really early, like way earlier than we normally would]

Hmm.

Like so early that a few of the characters didn’t have designs for faces?

[Kaplan: I remember other moments where other heroes came to be and Reaper is a good example where– Reaper we had no idea what… [...] But anyway… Reaper was particularly cool because that was a hero that was entirely inspired by the art; we just saw that character and we were like “oh man that’s cool; like he has to be in the game,” and that’s one where you just see the art and you go ok we are going to need to sit down and figure out what this guy does.]

From the sound of it, Tsang designed Reaper, which led to him being given gameplay mechanics. But not necessarily story?

Or even real character?

It’s intriguing, and interestingly, there’s a question from someone in the audience:

[Question: Hello, I’ve been going to BlizzCon for like six years now and I’ve heard on panel after panel in previous years people going please we want more diversity and honestly it was so exciting to see Overwatch because there’s like five female characters; I’m super excited, I was just wondering can we expect more female characters, more POC’s, more cultural diversity, more body diversity in future heroes that we are going to see in Overwatch?]

[Metzen: Yes. All of that, all. Often. I got to say honestly, just to follow up on that guys… it comes up every year especially in the World of Warcraft and we recognize that there are lot of people who want to feel represented and that is part of how we look at this product; we want to have these international cast of characters, we want everyone to come in play and we want people to feel represented and feel that there are characters that speak to them so we are putting a lot of thought and passion into that.

We came here with twelve characters this weekend, we have many, many more that we are already developing and there’s many more that we have concepts for but we are still working through the ideas so there’s a lot about this game that is seeking that as a very high ideal, to have people feel like they can be represented and feel like they can be part of this fictional event and that’s very important to us.]

And there’s more:

[Question: My big issue with the cinematic is that you have all these hero characters and they are fighting against each other and the same thing with the objectives; they are heroes but they are fighting against each other and there’s no real big villain, there’s no antagonist except for the other heroes. So when does the line get drawn to say these are heroes, these are villains and this is the objective everybody is chasing?]

[Metzen: So I guess the next point is (well) where is the story? Where does the narrative occur?

We feel these spaces and it’s kind of cool, you tell me that this character comes from this city but where does it play out, where will we be seeing the context of these characters? We don’t have anything to announce yet, we have a lot of plans that way, obviously you guys saw the cinematic yesterday which is something we just absolutely love; well we want to do more of that, we want to have deep rich stories that are fun and tug on your heart strings and just literally kick butt and show you the bigger tapestry of this world and how some of these kooky characters relate; what they think about each other, are there enmities, how do the villains play into this whole thing?]

[Kaplan: What’s cool about this, by kinda letting the gameplay breathe on its own and letting the story breathe on its own, we didn’t put any constraints on Jeff when it came to making this movie. We just said make a cool story in the Overwatch universe and we’ll make a cool game in your movie story and that’s how we’ve been sort of approaching it.]

There are several other questions along this line, but all of them result in the team saying, “These ideas are awesome!” in some way.

But here’s one that’s interesting and worth noting:

[Question: I’m not going to ask about packs but are you going to have alternate skins maybe?]

[Kaplan: That sounds awesome too, all I need to answer is yeah that sounds amazing; these characters look at them, they are beautiful and they are from the mind of Arnold and I can only imagine what Arnold would do if he started skinning these characters and how awesome they would look so hopefully something like that.]

So we glean a few things from this series of panel discussions and responses:

Reaper was designed as art first, then gameplay, with his “story” being third and probably last, perhaps several months after the Cinematic Trailer was completed.

The Overwatch team was committed to creating characters of diversity, and at the time of the panel, they had a lot of “concepts” for the heroes.

It was implied that Arnold Tsang would be the one given the majority of control over designing “alternate skins.”

Now, how much of the last part panned out is unknown, but considering that Arnold probably drew this guy (or had an assistant draw him):

And then to reveal six months later:

To be followed up with this skin upon the game’s release:

Well.

There are better artists than myself out there who will probably tell you that art is a process - some things come to your mind in a moment of inspiration and pure imagination. Some things are born with aesthetic design - location, buildings, settings, environments, or even characters - first and their story is filled in later, and others are basically hammered out slowly and painfully over time.

Please.

Please know that I am not defending Chu or Blizzard or whatever process they do use to develop characters.

And before people suggest that I’m making leaps in logic (which is entirely possible, it’s like 2 am here), consider the fact that:

The in-game article on Sombra - and this image is taken from July 2016 ( http://imgur.com/gallery/Rvv8y ) - features a design from her concept art that was not used at all - not even as a skin.

Should point to the fact that this process is still happening even with the current game.

So what’s the fucking point of all this?

My point remains the fucking same from the last post.

Chu: stop fucking vague-answering shit on your twitter. Like, technically, you’re correct - that dude from the Cinematic Trailer was NOT Reyes, and technically, he still isn’t. But seriously, man, when you put the pieces together - from the pale skin to the pipe bomb launcher to the 2014 Blizzcon panels to the bloody timeline of Tsang’s art - it looks real obvious that NO ONE was Reyes in the Cinematic Trailer -

Because the full story, concept, and background of the character of Gabriel Reyes probably didn’t really exist yet - not in full, not in any real presentable way.

You had a demonstration of half a character called Reaper - who was missing Shadowstep in the animation, who had “the wrong skintone,” who used the “wrong ability.”

And who probably did not have a real name or face.

Who probably did not have a real story.

Your boss literally called him “a bad man” as his only descriptor.

It’s okay to admit that you may not fully know Tsang’s art process. Maybe Chu does and maybe he doesn’t - he certainly probably knows more than me on this issue, right?

[Metzen: Ultimately, as the characters kind of come into view—some of them start with a fictional idea, some of them start with a drawing, many of them start with a gameplay paradigm that we want to achieve. Widowmaker ultimately starts with, “Hey, let's have a ranged sniper.” And I think some of them just lend themselves towards one vibe or another and we didn't want to say, “Well, there's no bad guys at all,” because certainly there would be in a world like this. We want to let each character just take the shape it feels like they're taking. But we didn't necessarily want to come flat out and pose the franchise as one of those binary things.]

[Chu: And what Chris was saying about some of the characters, we've talked about it in interviews. But I think for some of these characters there is actually a little more going on. They're not exactly bad guys. I think there's a lot of room to talk about what is a guy like Soldier: 76? I mean, good guy, bad guy? Like there's a lot of room to kind of analyze what's going on. Someone like Symmetra, too. And we're really pushing for that, too, with a lot of our characters. I mean, obviously, we have some characters like the Junkers who are pretty much bad dudes who are out having fun, causing mayhem. But I think in the middle, a lot of characters exist and are interesting for that reason.]

[Metzen: Because their character has somewhere to go.]

And something worth noting, since there seem to be lots of...pressure to move in this direction:

[PCG: At the time you guys released that cinematic, had you already made the Numbani map? Had you decided that you were going to go further with Doomfist? Or at that point was it literally just a gauntlet?]

[Metzen: At that point, when we made the cinematic, it was just a gauntlet. I remember we kind of had a writing team at the time as we were scripting that cinematic and Jeff Chamberlain, the director [of the announcement cinematic], really laid a lot of that out. But I'm like, I want to just have almost like a shotgun blast of flavor. So I had riffed Sound Quake and Doomfist, and I just personally enjoy riffing compound noun names if World of Warcraft is any indicator. So I just threw a bunch of shit out to make it sound like there's all this texture. I guess we're letting air out of the balloon and looking much less cool, but that was the intent of the flick—to create a sense of a far larger tapestry that we would actually weave together over time.]

[Metzen:So with Overwatch, we didn't over-design or over-world-build at all. We've tried to keep pace with the number of characters in development at any given time and make sure that the calories we're burning are specifically useful in rounding out each character in turn and then making connection points. Other than really broad things like the Omnic Crisis and big historical moments, in many ways, we're kind of making this up as we go and taking advantage of all these little details that filter out and tying up these ends and drawing touch points between them. In a way, it's a much more organic way to build a world and to broaden its tapestry. For instance, as opposed to on Warcraft and StarCraft—I went crazy on those first games, like building out this big world history. With this one, I think we're taking our time and not trying to get too far ahead of it so that, again, we and the developers have maximum freedom to chase new ideas and not be overly bogged down by the weight of a franchise that can occur over time. Which, in many ways, is like the anti-WoW.]

And maybe this is pretty fucking arrogant of me, but I’m just gonna quote myself:

[I’m tired of seeing funny, interesting, unique, creative characters get reworked by their creators into something more “typical” so that they don’t have to deal with the heavy lifting of the problems that come with defying expectations.]

Because the point remains the fucking same.

Blizzard, Overwatch team - I don’t know what sort of weirdass trauma WoW gave you, but contrary to your beliefs - there is literally no such thing as too much story. People will consume fucking anything as a story. People read fucking Finnegans Wake. People actually know Marvel timelines and universes. People were willing to watch four dumbasses with Halo and xboxes and way too much time on their hands make a fucking 14-season saga out of pure BOREDOM.

And maybe I’m just losing my mind, but it’s pretty fucking thoughtless and tactless of you to let your fans do all the hard work of filling in the gaps and building up your world -

http://m.ign.com/articles/2016/09/17/overwatch-a-world-fans-built

- Just so you can reap the benefits, and then drop little pieces of lore on a whim because some guy would rather tweet his ideas of a story than actually work on a full story.

So please, Blizzard and Overwatch’s development team:

You’ve made a fucking fun, amazing game. You’ve made a bunch of funny, interesting, unique, creative characters. You have defied my every expectation on what it means to play a team-based first-person shooter.

Please,

Do it again with Gabriel.

My bar is set low. I am daring you to raise it higher. Show me that - even if this character was whipped together halfassed over the course of a year, that his “grimdark” edge came first, and then his fun gameplay, and then his witty one-liners, and then his story - show me that you are committed to doing right by him and what he represents to untold numbers of people who need a character that speaks to them.

I would love nothing more than to see y’all match or surpass the complicated, complex versions of Gabriel Reyes the fans have developed.

And to everyone who stuck with me through this trainwreck of a post:

First off, thank you. Your patience and support and your willingness to read this rambling shitshow is amazing.

I will remind you again:

They can make him “a bad man.” They can halfass his story. They can string together designs and make them all masked because he still doesn’t have a real face on that character model.

But you’re probably here because you saw something in his character that speaks to you.

And I don’t give a fuck if that line was “This is my curse” or “You look ridiculous” or “Dead man walking” or even something as recent as “Now those are some fireworks.”

You hold your Gabriel Reyes tight and warm.

Lord knows the poor man needs a fucking hug.

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