The Internet Is Loving Echo's Original Overwatch Design
Fans of Overwatch have been celebrating the original design of one of the newer characters in the game, Echo. A tweet showcasing Echo's original design from the background of an old cinematic trailer that released in 2014 has gained traction on Twitter, with fans discussing what could have been.
The tweet from Twitter user @microrockets puts Echo's old design next to the final design and comments, "Overwatch bestowed a massive L to us for doing this to echo." They followed up by writing, "it just feels unnecessary to give her a face when other omnics (Zenyatta, Bastion, B.o.b and Orisa) didn't have them! Also to have that design out for years and then to get the same thing but with a generic face was ... disappointing."
As mentioned by @microrockets, the main crux of the issue for many fans of the game is the feeling that Echo received a humanoid face and an hourglass figure to make the character more "sexy," even though other robotic characters don't have humanoid faces. In a reply to the original tweet, @Lemondrawp wrote, "Blizzard always does this thing where all their women have to be perfectly conventionally attractive no matter what, it's tiring."
This actually isn't the first time people have complained about the Echo design specifically, as the same original character design made the rounds a year ago. However, the discussion surrounding the design change has certainly been reignited.
As for why exactly Echo took on a more humanoid look, some lore information provided by Jeff Kaplan may hold the answer. In a lore post around the time of Echo's release, Kaplan talked about how Echo was the final creation of Dr. Mina Liao, one of the founding members of the Overwatch team. Echo was designed in Liao's image and shares her voice. Echo was designed to be constantly adapting based on those around her — which makes sense, given her ability to shift into other characters.
"Mina Liao lives on through Echo," Kaplan wrote. "Echo absorbed much of who Liao was, and is also constantly adapting to all of the agents around her." That said, other characters like Orisa were also designed by humans, but still avoided looking humanoid.
Part of the reason why fans of Overwatch might be repeating the same conversations they have previously had is that Overwatch 2 is further off than fans might have hoped. While Blizzard has not given a release window, it has confirmed that the game will not be released in 2021. Overwatch is currently running the Archives 2021 event, and some of the new skins have set the internet ablaze.