For the 30th anniversary of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, Blizzard is turning Overwatch heroes into mechs. Mercy, Reaper, Soldier: 76, and Ramattra will all have skins based on the ‘90s anime starting April 29.
The lineup looks like this: Mercy as Wing Zero, Reaper as Deathscythe, Soldier: 76 as Tailgeese, and Ramattra as Epyon.
With such a massive roster of Overwatch heroes to choose from (43!), some didn’t make the cut, art director Dion Rogers and associate director of product management Aimee Dennett told Polygon in a recent interview.
“As an example, we originally tried out Ana for Tallgeese since their weapons are similar, but it ended up not really working,” Dennett said.
“We also explored doing Mauga as Heavyarms, since the weapons were such a close match,” Rogers said. “Ultimately, it just didn’t look quite right, so we ended up going in a different direction with the hero and mobile suit choices.”
The team bought Gunpla kits to build the mechs and compare them to their in-game versions. Rogers said you’ll notice this “if you look closely at the hinges in someone’s finger, that type of thing.” And when the collab goes live, the main menu will even feature art by one of the artists behind the Gunpla box art.
Blizzard has said that crossover skins don’t let you play as the characters, or mechs, from other media, but as Overwatch heroes cosplaying as them instead. Rogers said that when the team showed Bandai early iterations of the skins, it requested to see more of the heroes in the designs. That’s why you can still see Mercy’s glowing wings as she flies around in Wing Zero’s white and blue armor.
“Gundam’s been a major influence on culture and games, but it’s also had a big influence on many of our artists,” Rogers said. “This was a passion project for us, and for some of our team members, it was a bucket list moment.”
The Overwatch Mobile Suit Gundam Wing collab will begin on April 29.
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