D.Mon is Overwatch’s next hero, and she comes from the same mech-based team of ex-esports players that long-time hero D.Va does. Much like D.Va, D.Mon has a lot of gaming experience and numerous game references in her kit, one of which seems to be a direct reference to Final Fantasy. But she probably isn’t a fan of Square Enix’s RPGs, Blizzard says.
In a roundtable interview with members of the Overwatch team, Kotaku and other outlets were able to get an early look at D.Mon’s abilities and ask questions about the character’s creation. Here, we learned that her ultimate ability is called Limit Break. When she uses it, she casts a debuff on foes similar to Zenyatta’s Orb of Discord, increasing incoming damage on those affected. Given D.Mon’s gamer history, the term Limit Break sure does sound like an homage to Final Fantasy’s ability of the same name, but when asked if this meant that D.Mon was also a friend of Cloud Strife and had played Square Enix’s RPGs, we were told that she’s less a sword and potion girly and more of an FPS head.
“I would say that, at this point in time, she is a hardcore gamer, but leans slightly more first-person shooter and does not fully resonate [with Final Fantasy VII],” narrative designer Eleni Rivera says. “‘Limit Break,’ in terms of the ultimate name, it was just something that we felt really connected with the visuals. So we knew that there are other places that the name could exist, but we were just really happy with how the name kind of represented that ultimate where there is a ‘limit break.’ So, yeah, I think that was sort of the intention with that.”
Well that’s not as fun, though I suppose with copyright issues and such you can’t explicitly inject someone else’s game into your universe. In general, a lot of D.Va’s gamer mannerisms and references have been more general, rather than being tied to any specific game or fandom. For a brief window, Overwatch fans were under the impression that D.Va was previously a pro Starcraft player because of how her initial character reveal included a Starcraft player account, but Blizzard rolled that back and clarified that her pro-gamer background was in a game that was more similar to the interfaces she and her team use to pilot their mechs.
D.Mon joins the Overwatch roster on August 11.
