Blizzard Entertainment has finally addressed a question that’s been on the minds of Overwatch fans for years: why do newer heroes seem to follow a particular aesthetic trend? The answer, according to the development team, is far more practical than many players might have expected.
In a recent interview with GameSpot, senior producer Kenny Hudson explained that the shift towards more conventionally attractive, human-proportioned characters isn’t purely about sex appeal—it’s about making the developers’ lives significantly easier when creating cosmetic content.
Technical Limitations Drive Design Decisions
Hudson revealed that characters with longer limbs, taller legs and larger torsos provide a better foundation for designing skins and cosmetics. ‘Something that we kind of look into when we’re doing our heroes is how can we make them unique, but still give them a good platform, proportionally, height, scale proportion to not only build cosmetics for them and future-proof things, but to stop the technical hurdles,’ he explained.
The producer pointed to Wrecking Ball, the robot-piloting hamster, as an example of a character that puts the design team in ‘crisis’ mode when creating new skins. The unconventional body proportions of such characters make it significantly more challenging to add new geometry to their models, creating technical obstacles that slow down content production and require substantially more development resources.
Collaboration Skins Favour Certain Body Types
Art director Dion Rogers echoed these sentiments when discussing why certain heroes receive more skins than others. He noted that collaboration skins—crossover content with other franchises—are simply easier to design for characters like Mercy or Kiriko, who possess more standard human proportions.
This practical approach to character design has resulted in four of the five upcoming heroes fitting this more conventional mould, a trend that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the community. Many long-time players have expressed concern about the decreasing visual diversity within the roster.
A Return to Creativity on the Horizon
However, there’s good news for fans who miss the game’s more imaginative character designs. Hudson suggested that the team has learned valuable lessons from their experiences and hopes to return to creating more ‘oddball’ heroes in 2026.
‘Now we’re in this realm where we can make more Jetpack Cats because we’ve learned all these lessons,’ Hudson said, hinting at a future where technical constraints won’t limit creative character concepts as severely.
Major Changes Coming to Overwatch
These revelations come as Overwatch undergoes a significant transformation. The game is dropping the ‘2’ from its name and receiving something of a reboot on 10 February, featuring a new season, story content, and five new heroes launching simultaneously.
After years of challenges and restructuring, Blizzard appears to be repositioning its hero shooter for long-term success, balancing creative ambitions with practical development realities. Whilst some fans may be disappointed by the homogenisation of character designs, the promise of future ‘oddball’ heroes suggests that Overwatch hasn’t completely abandoned the diverse roster that initially made it stand out in the competitive shooter landscape, preserving the eccentric spirit that originally separated it from the gritty military-style shooters dominating the market.
