Overwatch artists bring a young fan's character to life

A young Overwatch fan sketched out her own character for the shooter, which launches on Tuesday, and Blizzard's artists were so charmed they whipped up concept art for what she might look like in the game.

This is Birst, designed by the daughter of Shane Hickey. It's important to note she is not being added to the game, this is just a fanart mockup by Blizzard staffers, tipping their caps to Hickey's kid. Still, it's fun to see a fridge-door drawing get A-list treatment, like it was on the conference-room whiteboard all along.

Here is Birst's design document:

"Her name is Birst. And she has a Boomer rang. She has lasers on her suit. You can make her kill or [heal]. She has things in a bag on her dress and she has a [healing] Box in her Bag. She can also fly with wings. She can jump soo high."

Sounds like Hickey's daughter envisions a support type, what with the buffing/healing abilities described. But I'm betting that boomerang needs a heavy cooldown, and probably might inhibit Birst's flight/jumping because someone with this kind of mobility and a rapid-firing weapon would be an A-list menace.

Hickey's original tweet has gathered more than 500 retweets and close to 1,000 likes since going out Thursday night. Naturally, lots of people are clamoring for her to be honored by Overwatch fully in-game, but let's calm down and realize there are all kinds of balancing issues that any new character introduces — much less for a game that hasn't yet launched. Still, Overwatch's subreddit has rallied to the cause with this treatment, if Blizzard is so inclined.

Still, it would be cool to see a primary schooler's take on a game character come to life in exactly the way she imagined. And it's heartwarming to see pros work on this kind of a concept, turn those crazy ponytails (I think?) into a wreath of fire and give Birst the wings her creator, deep down, really wanted to see.