Overwatch fans and voice actress call for a redesign of its newest hero: 'This concern is important, this is a hill worth dying on'

A side by side comparison of Overwatch hero Anran as depicted in the Elemental Kin short and in-game. A dark-haired Chinese woman with red eyes looks unhappy on the left. On the right, her in-game model is brighter, with a smaller nose, and an overall younger-looking face. — (Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

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7:30 PM PST: In a video on X, game director Aaron Keller confirmed that the team is "hoping to make" an update to Anran's design in season 1 at a later date.

"The team is currently discussing what it will take to make Anran look and feel more like the fierce older sister that we all envision her to be," he said. "We're so proud of the work that our team has put into Anran and the rest of the five heroes launching in season 1, and we agree that she can be even better if we get this aspect of her right in-game."

Overwatch Spotlight reception and an Anran update from Game Director Aaron Keller pic.twitter.com/mxh0C0IpIjFebruary 10, 2026

Overwatch's female hero designs have skewed young and conventionally attractive for a long time, but Anran's stood out because her in-game appearance looks dramatically different from how she looked when Blizzard introduced her in a recent animated short. And it doesn't help that she's the third Asian woman with a face that is almost interchangeable with the other Asian characters Kiriko and Juno.

Compared to the first version we saw of Anran, her nose has shrunk, her cheeks are fuller, and she just generally looks like she's 10 years younger than the character in the short. Fans pointed this out as soon as she was revealed to be an upcoming hero last week, prompting several people to offer up their own redesigns of her face on social media.

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Discussion over her design and fans calling for a redesign have exploded on X and Reddit over the last week. In a response to the criticisms, Anran's English voice actress, Fareeha, encouraged fans to be civil, but supported the complaints. "This concern is important," and it's a "hill worth dying on," she said in a video on X.

"I want you to know that I shared all of this with the dev team," she said. "Not only that, but I was encouraged to be as open and honest as possible, to not hold anything back. And it's my hope that this isn't for naught, that they see it, they hear it, from you all too."

how do you have a team of artists and still end up with same face syndrome as bad as this . BROTHER. pic.twitter.com/8AK1m9I7D4February 4, 2026

Blizzard hasn't made any official comment on the criticisms over Anran's design, but an Overwatch streamer—who recently attended an event at Blizzard HQ and is in a Discord server with developers—claims that the team has said it's "on their radar," and that a redesign could take months to finish. ~~I've asked Blizzard if this is true and will update the post if I hear back.~~

Even if several of the recent female heroes haven't really escaped the 'same face' design that people bring up a lot with Overwatch, it's hard not to see why people think Anran looks particularly bland. The short coming out right before her release makes it even more obvious. And if Blizzard intends to start releasing heroes every single season as it kicks off a new era for the game, it would be nice to see more variety in the character designs.

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Tyler has covered videogames and PC hardware for 15 years. He regularly spends time playing and reporting on games like Diablo 4, Elden Ring, Overwatch 2, and Final Fantasy 14. While his specialty is in action RPGs and MMOs, he's driven to cover all sorts of games whether they're broken, beautiful, or bizarre.

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