Overwatch’s Director Explains Why The Same Few Heroes Keep Getting Skins - Kotaku
By Google News Technology ·
The distribution of cosmetic skins—which heroes get the lion’s share and which ones get significantly fewer— is a pretty sensitive subject in the Overwatch community. Years of Mercy, Kiriko, and Juno players constantly eating good while Baptiste, Venture, and Wrecking Ball players wait months if not years for a new Legendary skin have some people jaded about the whole process, with some players even criticizing some of the game’s base hero designs as feeling like they are made with a “cosmetics-first” mindset.
During a group interview Kotaku was present for, game director Aaron Keller talked about the challenges of giving attention to its soon-to-be 55 heroes in not just cosmetics, but in storylines the game has introduced over the game’s 10 years. He says it’s a problem the team at Blizzard has been dealing with for years, one which he admits is “tricky” as the roster grows.
“Every new piece of content that we introduce to the game, whether it’s a hero or even a map, you know, means that the pool of everything that we’ve got, it is spread out a little bit,” he says. “We recognize how important it is to continue supporting all of the different heroes in the game. And on one side of it, it’s cosmetics, but as we delve into the story and the narrative for the game, you hear from a lot of players about like, ‘Hey, when is this particular hero going to enter the story?’ Or, ‘It felt like you kind of left off, let’s say, for example, the story of Zarya years ago. When are you going to pick that thing back up?’ And so it definitely makes that more difficult.”
With the introduction of the battle pass and frequent store refreshes, Overwatch is producing more skins in recent years than it used to when the game was primarily supported through loot boxes. Keller says that…
Originally published by Google News Technology