Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought.
Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).
Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”
These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.
Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.
By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.
