Blizzard Explains Decision Behind Overwatch’s New Hero

Last week after a few weeks of teasing, Blizzard finally took the wraps off their latest Overwatch hero in the form of “Orisa”, which is basically a robot that was created by child genius Efi Oladele. If you read about the hero, you would have noticed that Orisa shares some traits with other tank characters, namely Reinhardt.

However as it turns out this was a conscious decision on Blizzard’s part. In a report from Kotaku, it seems that Blizzard revealed the reason behind the creation of Orisa during a GDC session. According to Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu, “Orisa was a character that emerged from game design. We wanted to have what we called an anchor tank: an alternative to Reinhardt.”

Chu goes on to add, “We needed a spark, and we were looking for it. The thing about Orisa is, in a lot of ways she was unconventional, and she was hard to come to terms with. She has four legs, she has horns, she’s a robot. She has a really big frame and animal locomotion. It was difficult to encapsulate her personality. There was a lot going on.”

He also explained that the reason behind revealing Efi first wasn’t because they wanted to mislead gamers, but rather it was because Efi was essential to help bring Orisa’s origins together. Orisa is currently playable in the Public Test Realm where we expect her addition to Overwatch will probably take place in the next few months.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Blizzard, Overwatch