Shion’s debut as Overwatch’s 52nd hero could have been a momentous occasion. Instead, the hype for the damage-class Hashimoto mob boss fizzled quickly as online chatter about her appearance dominated her post-announcement discussion.
Shion would look cool in most other contexts. Her clean white business suit complements the bright red neon lights that run through the mechanical parts of her body. Her scarlet motorcycle adds a level of stylishness that anyone would be jealous of. The combination of robotic augments and human features combined with a badass moveset would work well in any first-person hero shooter, or even most other video games in general.
In Overwatch, however, she represents a large problem the game’s developers have had with character creation. Shion is an Omnic, a race of sentient robotic beings with features that distinguish them from humans; they lack human faces and are clearly mechanical in nature. They were built in Omniums, self-sustaining megafactories owned by the Omnica Corporation, and are capable of independent thought while also being stronger and smarter than humans.
Shion is the first playable feminine-presenting Omnic. Instead of marking her introduction into the lineup with a more traditional Omnic design, Shion’s creators included far more human features seemingly for no reason other than to sexualize her. She has an attractive face, a human shaped butt and breasts, and even a tongue (as seen in her announcement trailer). Nothing about her makes viewers think she’s entirely robotic until she talks and her mouth doesn’t move.
Blizzard developers will most certainly bend over backwards when explaining her lore to justify Shion’s physical humanization instead of admitting they are copy-and-pasting the same formula for each new female character they release. The most recent women added to Overwatch’s lineup frequently share similar characteristics; symmetrical faces, athletic builds, and hyper-feminine features, with some of these characters getting slapped with common East Asian cultural motifs without much thought.
Anran, the 22-year-old graduate of Wuxing University’s Fire College, uses a flaming fan to scorch her enemies. Kiriko, the 21-year-old medic from Japan, is defined visually by her guardian fox spirit. Sierra, a 25-year-old soldier from Colorado and the most recent hero before Shion, bursts onto the battlefield with heavy winged eyeliner, lipgloss, and various technological tools of war (a big gun, a drone, etc.).
Fans are not blind to this formula, either. Posters on Reddit summarize this trend succinctly. As one user puts it: “The character sheet at blizzard: Woman, attractive, young, Japanese, cyberpunk, anime. Yeah, that sounds like money right here.”
These are just a few examples of the epidemic of Overwatch’s women being limited to a very specific niche, one that falls far short of the original Overwatch lineup’s ingenuity. Shion, as a female-presenting robotic character with a clear reason to split from these features, could have been the Overwatch developer’s chance to hit a female design out of the park after a series of swings-and-misses, but is instead another disappointing addition.
Other Omnic characters have managed to stand out visually without adopting human features. Ramattra, the most recent Omnic addition to Overwatch’s lineup, has a menacing appearance with cohesive, lore-appropriate features and aesthetic. The difference between Ramattra and Shion that allowed him to not fall into the formulaic character design Overwatch is now infamous for is that fact that he is a man.
By adding yet another standardly sexy woman character to the roster, Overwatch developers are telling their fans they care about creating conventionally attractive women over thoughtful characterization. Shion is just another unfortunate victim in their long-running war against creative experimentation when it comes to female characters.
