Most seasonal drops in Overwatch over the past few years have brought a collab with an IP, bringing in big cash and lots of discussion.
Last season, the game featured skins inspired by K-pop group LE SSERAFIM. In the past, it’s had skins from Street Fighter, anime series like Cowboy Bebop and My Hero Academia, and even Porsche and Transformers. Up next appears to be action game Stellar Blade, and players have a lot to say about it already.
Announced first on official Stellar Blade channels and then on the Korean Overwatch page, “Eve Protocol” will be the game’s next collaboration, presumably featuring skins inspired by the 2024 action-adventure game, and many players aren’t happy about it.
“The AI slop company?” asked one player, likely referencing an AI-generated music video and song released earlier this summer, featuring the protagonist of the upcoming Stellar Blade: Bloodrain sequel, Evie.
Stellar Blade studio Shift Up CEO Kim Hyung Tae posted the video on July 30 and stood by it, highlighting the divide in overall sentiment about AI when it comes to East and West. In Korea, AI is used often and accepted in general, whereas in the West it’s tepid, to say the least.
Other players, meanwhile, are pointing to a recent NieR Automata collab in Overwatch that players had plenty of things to say about. “Assless Eve in Overwatch,” said another player, who seemingly took issue with how that game’s buxom heroine 2B showed up as slender support hero Kiriko. And on the opposite end of that, another player asked, “has OW already turned into an 18+ game?” given Stellar Blade’s reputation as a “gooner” title.
Overwatch skin collabs are less direct inclusions and more so a situation where the heroes wear costumes inspired by the IP, so they’re never going to be one-to-one. But whenever there is a new team-up of brands, players tend to find some sort of issue with something, like which hero gets which skin, the wrong hero getting a mismatched one for a particular character, and so on.
I’m looking forward to watching the chaos unfold as the skins are revealed soon, although there’s no guarantee that this will take place outside of Korea just yet, given both of the accounts posting the news today are based in the region.
Update on Oct. 23 at 1:05pm CT: The headline was updated for clarity to show that community “AI slop” comments were aimed at Shift Up, not Overwatch as a game.
