I think HOTS has long since ditched the idea of making characters visually consistent. There are quite a number of character skins now that make characters difficult to distinguish from other characters.
For HOTS, that’s not too big of a problem, because everyone knows at the start of the game who’s playing what character. The skins and players stay consistent throughout an entire match, so any confusion goes away quickly. Also, the camera view always provides an equally clear perspective of each character.
In Overwatch, people are switching characters all the time and often fighting in low light and/or at long range or behind barriers, where they can barely see a silhouette of each other. It’s significantly more important that each character be easily identifiable at a glance, regardless of their skin choice. That limits a lot of what they can do with skins.
That Valeera skin, for example, looks completely different from normal Valeera. If she were in Overwatch, people might not even know what character they were shooting at. I’m not sure I even would have known who that skin was if you hadn’t labeled it.
I can understand the need for more distinct and instantly recognizable silhouette in a fast-paced FPS, but you still have to take into account stance and animation. If Valeera is a hero in OW, even with the Nightslayer skin, she will still walk on her tippy toes all hunched over and swinging her arms around with those daggers as if they are her arm extensions. Overall she’s still be pretty recognizable.
True, obviously you can’t do a 1:1 port of those skins into Overwatch (well, except the Junkrat one). But look at what we’ve gotten from other universes.
All of those skins are instantly recognizable as both their D3/WoW/SC2 counterparts (except Orisa really), but you’re never going to mistake them for anything but the heroes that they are.
Personally I think that the rest of the Blizzard universe is amazing inspiration for skins. I think things like Stormwind Knight Brigitte, Orgrimmar Guard Reinhardt, Spirit Guardian Mercy, Specter Ana, Witch Doctor Zenyatta, could all make fantastic looking skins in the same vein of the skins I listed before, that are still clearly recognizable as each hero.
Right, but they specifically gave those skins to characters who could wear them like costumes. The characters are still the Overwatch characters, just with some different clothing and, in some cases, hairstyles.
Orisa’s Immortal (not Archon ) skin is a bigger visual change, but so are her base legendary skins. It works out, because as the only giant, 4-legged robot character in the game, she’s always easy to identify just by her body structure.
I’m sure there are more Blizzard skins they could do. All I’m trying to say is that the “rules” are a bit stricter here than in HOTS.
In the short time I played SC2, I was never a fan of protoss
Oh absolutely. FPS hitboxes are a bit more important than MOBA hitboxes, and so long as the skin is roughly same shape and size, pretty much anything goes that way.
Still a ton of ideas what they could do though. That Junkrat skin looks especially great and could port into Overwatch pretty easily.
There is the technical issue that HOTS skins are actually lower definition than the sheer amount of detail put into Overwatch. It’s not just something they can “Port” over into this game. We would’ve had D.Va’s demon skin and Genji’s Neon Genesis Evangelion themed skin if it were that simple. The skins would look like garbage due to lower resolution and all that.
) skin is a bigger visual change, but so are her base legendary skins. It works out, because as the only giant, 4-legged robot character in the game, she’s always easy to identify just by her body structure.