Despite all the positive vibes for Monitoring with her massive changes coming in Season 1, the new character Anran has been met with backlash over how different the character looked from her original appearance. After a rough initial launch back in 2023, Monitoringor “Overwatch 2', as it was originally branded, has slowly turned things around with players thanks to continued updates, new seasonal content and impactful additions to the core experience like the well-received Stadium game mode.
In a surprising move, Blizzard is overhauling the game on February 10, 2026. Drop the “2” from the title, Monitoring adds 5 heroes to its new season. Shaking up what they've done before, Blizzard is shaking things up for the franchise's 10th anniversary year, putting more emphasis on the story by introducing a storyline centered around the Rise of Talon that will run throughout the year with 10 heroes joining the roster during the same time frame. However, one of the newly introduced heroes has become a lightning rod for the community.
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Overwatch remakes Anran
The newest damage hero, Anran, was revealed as part of MonitoringSeason 1 announcement, the older sister of Wuyang and someone who can give fire based attacks using dual war fans. However, one element that doesn't seem to sit well with society after her reveal is her face, which changed significantly with a smaller nose, narrower face shape and softer eyes, making her look very similar to other characters on the list, such as Brigette or Kiriko. In fact, Anran was originally revealed in Wuyang's backstory when he was added Overwatch 2 and had a more mature and more tomboyish look, which better meant she was his older sister.
The fan backlash was so loud that even Anran's voice actor made a statement. Fareeha posted a video on social media regarding Anran's design in an attempt to address the “elephant in the room” without stepping on the developer's toes. Referring to the Elemental Kin series, Fareeha mentioned that there was an unspoken promise to challenge beauty standards, a precedent that ultimately left many feeling let down when things didn't quite turn out the way they expected. Calling it a “hill worth dying on”, it seems Fareeha and the community have achieved their goals as Monitoring director Aaron Keller confirmed that Anran would receive a redesign.
In her post, Keller thanked fans for their reception of the Season 1 reveal, but wanted to take a moment to share that Monitoring the team is currently discussing how to make Anran look and feel more like the “cool older sister she was originally intended to be.” Keller also mentioned that this change has been in place for a while and was almost shared last week at the reveal, but in the end they waited until they had confirmation of the exact changes. The change is tentatively slated for Season 1, but details about what will change were not revealed in Keller's announcement.
Even before the launch of Season 1 and this new frontier for the game, Monitoring has seen a spike in player activity. Specifically, Steam's player base has exploded of late, with Monitoring has seen a 63% increase in players in the last 30 days alone, reaching a 24-hour peak of 69,881 players on February 7th. That's impressive due to the fact that Steam is probably not the first place for Monitoring since most PC players are likely on Battle.net, Blizzard's own marketplace and game launcher. With season 1 now here, it will be interesting to see what kind of momentum Monitoring can win and how long it can hold onto it.
- Released
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August 10, 2023
- ESRB
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T for Teens // Blood, mild language, tobacco use, violence
