Lately it feels like every time we get a big Overwatch 2 announcement it’s about a collaboration with another IP. The hero shooter just wrapped up a Transformers crossover and is in the final days of its World of Warcraft celebration. That trend continues with a new My Hero Academia-inspired event announced at Tokyo Game Show.
It’s starting to bum me out, actually. Now that Overwatch 2 has reportedly canceled the story missions that were meant to be a pillar of the sequel, it feels like these characters spend more time cosplaying heroes from other bullshit than they do moving their own story forward. I don’t have anything against My Hero Academia. The manga and anime are widely regarded as one of the best Shōnens today, and Overwatch 2 has been collaborating with anime like One Punch Man and Cowboy Bebop over the past year. So this isn’t a surprising move and the skins do look good.
But the crossover events have reached oversaturation levels, for me and other members of the wider Overwatch community, especially as Blizzard shows preferential treatment for specific characters. Maybe I’m just generally becoming more disillusioned with the game as Blizzard struggles to find after repeated layoffs and content cuts. At this rate, anything the team does that isn’t that story-driven sequel we were promised in 2019 feels like a cynical cash grab chasing Fortnite’s pop culture referential success. This is the longest it’s taken me to finish a season’s battle pass just because my interest in a game I once loved is finally waning.
But I digress. We’re here to talk about the My Hero Academia crossover. The event will run from October 17 to October 30, and includes five skins based on characters from the manga and anime. Some of these are going to the usual suspects, as Blizzard seems to have a roster of 10 heroes it loves to shower in new skins. Reinhardt will be dressed up as the big and buff All Might, Tracer will play protagonist Izuku Midoriya, Reaper is coming to Halloween party as the masked villain Tomura Shigaraki, and Kiriko is getting a Himiko Toga skin. Juno is the last of the five, dressing up as Ochaco Uraraka, which, looking at the character, practically is a Juno skin without a helmet. So that’s a good crossover. However, this does mean that Juno is getting a Legendary skin before Venture, who hasn’t gotten one since they were added to the game four months before the Martian support character was added this season. Click through to see more of the skins.
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