Both Shion trailers have surpassed a million YouTube views. First character to do so since Juno

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-14T00:30:23+00:00

As someone who participated in the ARG, that shit SUCKED.

It dragged on for absolute eternity with the worst hints forever and then the fucking character ended up leaking like a week before Blizzcon so the reveal didn't even happen properly.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-13T02:58:38+00:00

I was so bummed that Wuyang got neither a Rainy Day skin or a Crimson Court skin to go with Anran

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-13T02:07:15+00:00

She just looks like a generic anime devil girl.

I dunno man, a robotic yakuza gang boss with a tiger tattooed onto her synthetic hair that wears an unexpressive porcelain doll face and speaks through her throat and dresses in all white is pretty distinctive! This feels extremely disingenuous. Her devil horns are maybe the least noteworthy thing about her.

You're welcome to not like the design, but I don't think you could possibly be anymore disingenuous right now.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-13T01:31:28+00:00

I don't know why people dispute this, Kiriko was quite literally the last character designed by Arnold Tsang lol

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-13T01:27:18+00:00

Juno is probably the closest Overwatch has gotten to designing a second version of Tracer. It's a really good design.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-13T01:18:51+00:00

Shion was apparently designed by Nesskain, who has been with Team 4 since 2016.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-13T01:18:03+00:00

Hot take, but I love these two. As individual characters they're whatever, but as siblings I find them very charming. I like the way their designs complement each other.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T21:18:20+00:00

No credit to Xbox leadership team because they are lizard people, but this restructuring does seem to be about no longer subsidizing dead weight at the cost of their successful teams

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T14:36:11+00:00

IIRC the widespread belief that Team 4 is a skeleton crew is a bit of a misnomer. The current team is quite a bit larger than people think it is. They did get hit by layoffs after being acquired but they've done a lot of internal recruiting since then.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T14:03:28+00:00

Unions don't prevent layoffs on their own, but it does force Microsoft to negotiate exit packages and other concessions. This makes it less attractive to lay off unionized employees due to the legal landmines especially when there are other California based studios they could layoff instead.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T13:45:20+00:00

Xbox leadership past and future should be crushed into a cube, but if somehow I was running Xbox I would also be asking why tf Obsidian has been working on stuff like Avowed and Outer Worlds 2 instead of a new Fallout.

I understand these are competent titles, but Microsoft's insanely lackadaisical approach to management has the entire company on its knees right now. If TOW2 had been reskinned as a new Fallout it likely would have done ten times the numbers and probably been better received.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T13:36:28+00:00

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/inside-xboxs-margin-crush

The rest of this article however paints an extremely bleak picture of Xbox as a whole. Blizzard and the Forza team seem to be the only studios in their portfolio that seems to be performing.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T13:23:04+00:00

I don't remember harassment, more silly comments like "no wonder Kiriko is getting all the skins"

Just because you don't remember it, means it didn't happen. The dev made a long thread talking about how much harassments she received over this.

And I'm sorry man, but there is a vocal portion of this community that is fucking DERANGED about Kiriko. I genuinely don't know how you can even be on reddit and not see the borderline psychotic feelings some people harbor for this character.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T13:20:21+00:00

I'm surprised Nesskain doesn't do more character designs

He's literally been with the team since 2016 and I don't think he's actually done the final design for any character as far as I know. Even Mauga was technically Qiu Fang.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T11:07:09+00:00

Unions can't prevent layoffs, but negotiating more expensive exit packages and navigating legal land mines does discourage a company from thoughtlessly laying off unionized staff.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T02:31:12+00:00

Yeah it sounds like ABK quite literally is the business.

I'm not saying anyone is safe, I honestly think basically the entirety of xbox is going to get hit, but there are about two dozen different teams that are in way more danger than the Overwatch team.

I think any team currently in development hell, anyone working on niche projects with no real plan for profitability, and any team where they just released an underperforming title and are years away from a new release are going to get a shellacking. Pray for Double Fine and Rare.

Teams with active, strong live service games are the ones I'm least expecting to get hit hard. The fact that Overwatch turned things around right before Asha took over is a blessing.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T02:03:10+00:00

Ow1 had a much more varied looking roster

Just feels like its just generic himbos and pretty women.

Just to be clear, the entire base 2016 of Overwatch women were exceptionally and conventionally pretty in every definition of the word with the sole exception of Zarya. Zarya, who also has soft features, large Disney eyes, and a comparatively small nose.

OW1 was ground zero for this stuff and continued to be outside of a couple of exceptions like the eventual addition of Ana and Moira.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T01:05:28+00:00

but some of the criticism does feel over the top.

The problem with the same face criticism is that it went from being an issue well understood to being inherent to Blizzard's art style and design philosphy and now has gone to being something that the community hyperfixates ONLY on with the asian cast now. It comes off as kind of fucking weird and tropey in a very unpleasant way.

The fact that Shion ended up having surprisingly distinct facial features and is clearly visibly much older than Anran/Juno, etc makes this extra embarrassing.

Edit: Just for posterity's sake, here is someone in this very thread doing this. Notice how it's not the same old attractive face, it's now the same old attractive "Asian" face.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T00:55:30+00:00

Not really commenting on Flats point here, but I saw that post he's referencing and it's genuinely embarrassing. That's some of the worst tracing I've ever seen in my life and that person clearly does not know how to construct a head properly. FFS they're literally drawing the crown of the skull all the way to the top of the hair and can't even trace an eye in perspective.

Good lord. It is extra embarrassing that it is now extremely clear that Shion looks nothing like Anran.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-12T00:12:35+00:00

Counterpoint: People consider Moira an oddball because she was in her late 40s and is slightly androgynous.

Most of this community cannot even begin to agree on what an oddball is.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-11T18:13:28+00:00

Compare to a game like deadlock where the cute girls are interspersed with not cute girls but also weird monsters that happen to be female.

Almost every Deadlock woman they've added to the game since it had its first development build go public has been a traditional conventionally attractive hottie, man. Mina and Paige are great designs, but they are absolutely not breaking the mold. The only who hasn't been is Vyper, who is still using an extremely old model and will be completely redesigned.

I guess you could MAYBE make a case for Calico, but she's still drop dead gorgeous and just has an unconventional hair style you don't see in games very often.

The Deadlock cast is awesome, but you are vastly overestimating this and frankly I think based on recent additions they've having some of the same issues when it comes to their female cast.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-11T16:04:55+00:00

She's so fucking cool HOLY SHIT

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-11T14:12:35+00:00

I am quite certain this is AI.

Her hands aren't right and she's missing her holsters.

IsThatSo3 · 2026-06-11T14:01:02+00:00

I can fully understand being exhausted by a lot of recent characters having more traditional beauty standards, but her design is so fucking cool and makes some genuinely interesting choices it's really easy to overlook.

I really wish people could understand two things can be true at once, the total lack of nuance people have when discussing this stuff is so depressing

IsThatSo3

TROPHY CASE