When Overwatch 2 announced they would be making collabs, the fans of the game were quite surprised by many of the selections. Though the iconography of anime like Cowboy Bebop and My Hero Academia, franchises like Transformers, and even Porsche, did fit into the larger aesthetics of Overwatch 2, the choices for collabs often took some gamers by surprise. None were more surprising, however, until earlier this month, when Blizzard confirmed their first official collab with another video game (that isn’t from their stable) with none other than Street Fighter 6.
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Though the Overwatch 2 team has previously released skins and items based around other Blizzard properties like Starcraft and Warcraft, the new Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter 6 collab marks a major shift for the team not only in terms of how much they release but how quickly. The new collab arrives in game on Tuesday, May 20th, just one week after the Overwatch 2 x Gundam Wing collab departed the game’s shop, and it also comes equipped with eight total skins (plus multiple emotes and highlight intros). ComicBook had the opportunity to sit down with some members of the Overwatch 2 dev team to dig into the brand new skins for the collab, where they revealed why this collab shouldn’t have taken you by surprise at all.
A key piece of the Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter collab that has a special place for the team that fans may not immediately realize is in the new key art. To create this, the Overwatch 2 team enlisted Azuki Art Director Arnold Tsang for the task. Even if you don’t know Arnold’s name, every Overwatch player knows his work, as he previously worked as the Character Art Director for both Overwatch and Overwatch 2. The Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter collab project marked a homecoming for Tsang, as he returned to collaborate with Blizzard on the art, but it goes even deeper than that for him. Not only was Tsang a fan of Street Fighter (break time on development of the original Overwatch was reserved for Street Fighter battles for the team), but he was actually the artist on Street Fighter #1 from publisher UDON back in 2003.
“The conversation was short,” Tsang revealed. “Dion was like, ‘We’re doing Street Fighter.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ And then that that was how it went.”
Dion Rogers, the Art Director for Overwatch 2, added, “If we didn’t call you, Arn, we were doing a disservice to (the collab).”
Tsang called the collab a “match made in heaven,” not only for himself since Street Fighter is one of the building blocks of his artistic career, but also for Overwatch 2. He went on to note that the DNA between both games, despite being radically different genres, was present from the very start of development on the first Overwatch:
“We knew we wanted a game that had heroes, but what kind of heroes would
we want? I always draw inspiration from Street Fighter, obviously. One of the first things that we started with was giving our heroes places of origin from the world. It made me think back to a poster I used to have of Street Fighter. It was all the characters, and you see the the country flag beside their picture, and you see all these arrows kind of like pointing to each other and talking about their relationships…That just made such an interesting dynamic.”
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Tsang went on to note that another major influence Street Fighter had on Overwatch was in rooting each character in their origins. Street Fighter always made sure the designs and personalities of its characters were heavily influenced by where they hailed from, and Overwatch followed suit.
“Even the worldbuilding, when we first created maps, Kings Row was called London and Tracer was from London or Ana was from Cairo, which is Temple of Anubis, or Hanamura is where Hanzo and Genji kind of have origins from,” Rogers added. “So, very similar to the world of Street Fighter, where they come from these different places and then they have a map that they belong to.”
The Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter 6 collab will launch with the most skins that any Overwatch 2 collab has ever had, including: Juno as Chun-Li, Kiriko as Juri, Winston as Blanka, Sigma as M. Bison, Soldier: 76 as Guile, Widowmaker as Cammy, Zenyatta as Dhalsim, and Hanzo as Ryu. Considering the massive roster for both Overwatch 2 and Street Fighter, the sky was truly the limit for this collab.
“I’m pretty sure you can literally make a skin for every single hero in Overwatch,” Tsang joked.
Fans of both Overwatch and Street Fighter should expect to find multiple Easter eggs present on each skin. Two that Rogers would reveal were Hanzo’s quiver on his back is actually Ryu’s duffle bag, while Zenyatta’s Dhalsim has cuts on his body that give the impression of where his Street Fighter counterpart would be able to stretch his limbs. One of the biggest achievements with the new skins that Rogers was most excited about was Soldier 76’s hair as Guile, which he said was “quite a challenge.”
“I love the way it looks in Street Fighter 6. I think we achieved a very similar result on 76 in the game,” Rogers said. “And we have a fun highlight intro where he combs his hair… It’s really well done from a 3D perspective.”
These eight skins, however, represent the larger planning of the team and their passion for making the collab come to life; Rogers noted that they really pushed themselves to make as many happen as possible. Typically, collabs have released on average five or six skins, so the eight total for Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter 6 marks their biggest offering yet. The quick timeline between the previous collab and the newest one isn’t exactly a shift in strategy on the part of time, but it is a sign that the team has improved their process of putting these collabs together.
“We’ve actually gotten better at our production,” Rogers said. “Sometimes it’s about, ‘Oh man, we only have five months to do this or that,’ but the team’s gotten really good. We haven’t grown the team or anything like that. It’s just we’ve gotten really good at the right edits to make or we button up a few things, and the excitement level of the team when IP collab comes along, they just dive into it. So, the team has just gotten really strong at some of this stuff. You’ll probably see more and more things as we go because of it.”
The quickness in the timeline between Overwatch 2‘s newest collabs may give some fans the feeling that this trend will continue across new seasons, but it may not become the norm.
“I don’t know if you should expect to,” Rogers said. “But if we can, we’ll do it. We’ll try.”
Though our previous interviews about their collabs have revealed skin ideas that were considered and ultimately not pursued, the Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter 6 didn’t have any that the team would share. Rogers did note that the team didn’t do anything with Ken, the character that started his life in Street Fighter as a mirror of Ryu.
“Maybe Ken would have been an awesome one to get to,” Rogers said. “A cool recolor for Hanzo or at least explore Genji.”
One of the biggest omissions that fans seem to be rallying behind was everyone’s favorite skating support, Lucio, who seemed primed to score a collab skin as Street Fighter‘s Dee Jay. Those disappointed that it didn’t happen shouldn’t entirely give up hope, though.
“Dee Jay as Lucio sounds awesome,” Rogers said, when we brought up the demand. “We’ll get there, maybe one day.”
The new Overwatch 2 x Street Fighter 6 collab arrives in game on Tuesday, May 20.
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