Play out your Overwatch fan fiction in Starbound with these custom skins

The fandom surrounding Overwatch can't be contained. First it was the mountains of fan fic and artwork (some more family-friendly than others), and now it's even beginning to seep into other games entirely. Starbound is the latest to be bit by the Overwatch bug, and thanks to the effort of two Steam Workshop modders, SolarPug and Spectral Minister, you can now play as your favorite Overwatch hero as you scour alien planets for resources.

Simply called the Overwatch Mod, this pack contains a pretty wide selection of armor and weapons inspired by 11 members of the Overwatch team that you're free to mix and match as you choose. The weapons aren't just simple skins either, but are pretty faithful to their functionality as seen in Overwatch. Soldier 76's Heavy Pulse Rifle, for example, comes equipped with a secondary grenade launcher that you can spam similar to his right-click ability only without the cooldown. Others, like Mercy's staff, have been changed to compensate for what's possible in Starbound, instead creating an area of effect heal rather than a constant beam. Still, after a few hours spent hopping around I'm fairly impressed both by the quality of the skins and the fact that the weapons feel useful and fun to use—blasting away aliens as Reapers is quite a joy.

There's even a few extra nifty add-ons, like sprays that you can plaster on the walls of your ship, a storage box that resembles the loot chest you get Overwatch skins from, and a special healing item modeled after the canister Roadhog drinks when he heals up.

The weapons are meant for players who are at or near Starbound’s endgame, but the clothes can be crafted easily with any tier one spinning wheel—which shouldn't take all that long to get if you're just starting out. Alternatively, SolarPug and Spectral Minister have provided the item IDs so you can spawn all the gear right away if you don't feel like waiting. Open the chat bar and type "/admin" to enable privileges for your character and then type "/spawnitem" followed by the item ID of the equipment you want to make it appear. Just remember to type in "/admin" a second time to switch off privileges once you're geared out otherwise you'll be invincible—unless you're into that sort of thing. Hooray for cheating!

To get a look at the armor and guns in action, I threw together some quick little gifs for you to enjoy.

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With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.