Whenever Blizzard reveals a new Overwatch hero, there’s usually one defining hook. For Genji, it was the cybernetic ninja fantasy. For Wrecking Ball, it was the hamster driving a mech. For Shion, it’s what if John Wick rode a motorcycle through a team fight and then threw it at you? That comparison isn’t mine; it’s Blizzard’s.
“We knew in our heads that we wanted to do something along the lines of John Wick, Hard Boiled,” lead hero producer Kenny Hudson tells me during a press roundtable. “We asked ourselves, ‘What does a maybe cheesy action movie look like in the Overwatch universe and in a kit?'”
A John Wick Fantasy In The Overwatch Universe
The answer is Shion, a DPS hero arriving as part of Overwatch’s ongoing Tokyo storyline. She’s a dual-pistol-wielding flanker with an explosive motorcycle, an assassin’s attitude, and enough swagger to make even Reaper seem understated.
According to Hudson, the team started with a surprisingly simple fantasy. “What would John Wick do?” he says. “That was a question we asked ourselves a bunch.”
The result is a hero built around chaining abilities together like action-movie set pieces. Her semi-automatic pistols alternate fire in rhythmic bursts. Her movement ability, Evade, lets her dash sideways while gaining survivability. Her motorcycle ability, Joyride, can be used to engage, escape, or launch the bike directly into enemies. Every piece of her kit is designed to flow into the next. “We wanted players to be able to build their own dynamic combos,” Hudson says.
During the roundtable, I ask why now felt like the right time to explore another heavily augmented, or possibly omnic, character. Overwatch’s lead narrative designer Miranda Moyer immediately clarifies the mystery. “Shion actually is an omnic.” That fact is central to who she is. “She’s kind of putting on this performance of what it means to be a human as an omnic in this very human-heavy world,” Moyer says.
It’s an intriguing wrinkle for a character whose entire visual identity revolves around projection. Shion wears tailored suits and rides motorcycles. She presents herself with absolute confidence, but underneath that polished exterior is a character wrestling with identity in a world that often judges omnics differently than humans.
Moyer describes the season’s broader theme as “finding out the truth of who you are underneath all of these expectations from others.” Shion represents the darker side of that idea.
The team repeatedly hints that much more of her backstory remains under wraps, but they clearly view her as one of the most narratively integrated heroes they’ve created yet. “She is someone who has, despite her very clear position of power, a lot of baggage,” Moyer says. That baggage has transformed her into a survivor and eventually into a crime boss.
Blizzard references everything from Yakuza to Kill Bill as Shion’s inspirations. Moyer specifically cites Lucy Liu’s O-Ren Ishii as an influence, describing a character carrying “that same sort of chip on her shoulder about her past.”
Though Shion avoids becoming a straightforward homage. Overwatch has always enjoyed twisting familiar archetypes into something unexpected, and the team deliberately approached Shion the same way. “If you hear John Wick, you’re like, ‘Oh, it’s a cool guy in a suit, and he’s got his two guns,'” Moyer says. “Shion being a woman, being an omnic in this world where omnics are viewed a certain way, gave us a lot to dig into with her character.”
Style Meets Gameplay
Even seemingly small details, like her flashy reload animation, were built around personality first. “The reload is one of the coolest that we’ve seen in-game,” Hudson says. “And it came directly from her personality traits.”
The animation team, Moyer adds, is famously obsessive about character details. “The fact that they are so reflective of the personalities that they have in their lines and their stories is always really impressive to me.”
Of course, none of that matters if the hero isn’t fun. Fortunately, Shion looks absurdly so. A motorcycle-riding assassin already sounds like a custom-game fever dream. The fact that Blizzard actually got it working, and apparently had to invent new hitbox technology to make it function properly, is almost as impressive as the hero herself.
Hudson repeatedly returns to the same idea throughout the interview: action. “Acrobatics are fun, riding a motorcycle is fun, firing dual pistols is fun,” he says. That might be the simplest explanation for Shion’s existence.
Overwatch has spent the past decade creating heroes that embody specific fantasies: ninjas, cowboys, scientists, monks, cats. Now it has a stylish omnic crime boss who rides a motorcycle into battle and explodes it in your face. Or, as Blizzard might put it, it finally has its John Wick. Just don’t expect her to be quite as human as she looks.
Overwatch (Formerly Overwatch 2)
- Released
-
August 10, 2023
- ESRB
-
Teen / Violence, Blood, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
