Overwatch 2‘s eighteenth season is scheduled to launch next week and, to promote it, the developers at Blizzard Entertainment dropped a new trailer for the game during Xbox’s recent Gamescom livestream. As Blizzard had previously announced, the new season will feature an all-new Stadium Quick Play queue, a Payload Race mode, and a new playable character called Wuyang, as well as several new Perks, Stadium maps, and Stadium heroes. In addition to all this, it seems like Overwatch 2 Season 18 will also contain a collaboration event involving Persona 5, much to the surprise of some fans.
Overwatch 2‘s most recent trailer ends with a brief snippet of footage showing the silhouette of a character who’s wearing a Joker outfit. It’s not exactly clear who this person is supposed to be (or if this is intended to depict Joker himself), but the game will obviously be receiving Persona 5-themed cosmetics of some kind next week. While Blizzard and Atlus, the developers of Persona 5, have been unsurprisingly tight-lipped about the contents of this crossover event, some of the potential candidates for Overwatch 2‘s Phantom Thieves skins already seem quite obvious.
As fans of both games may know, the heroes of Overwatch 2 and the characters of Persona 5 surprisingly share a few of the same voice actors. Persona 5‘s Phantom Thief Haru Okumura and Overwatch‘s Martian support hero Juno, for example, are both portrayed by Xanthe Huynh in the English dubs for each game.
While the two characters do look pretty different, it would make a lot of sense to give Juno a Haru skin, given that they’re voiced by the same person and have fairly similar personalities. Plus, although Haru typically dons a school uniform, there is a cognitive version of the character who has a spacesuit-inspired outfit, similar to the one that Juno wears.
Like Juno and Haru, Overwatch 2‘s Cole Cassidy and Persona 5‘s Yusuke Kitagawa are both played by the same actor: Matthew Mercer. Cassidy doesn’t use swords or assault rifles, like the ones that Yusuke uses, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Blizzard decided to give him a Phantom Thief skin.
Similarities between voice actors aside, there aren’t many Overwatch 2 heroes that bear a strong resemblance to the members of the Phantom Thieves. That being said, there is one character in particular, the Mexican damage hero Sombra, who has a major trait in common with Persona 5‘s Futaba Sakura: the two individuals are both skilled hackers. Although Futaba doesn’t have any weapons of her own in Persona 5, the fact that she and Sombra have the same occupation is more than enough reason to pair them together.
Persona 5‘s cat-like mascot, Morgana, is another character that can easily be paired with an Overwatch 2 hero. Given that they’re both small animals, the mech-wearing hamster, Wrecking Ball, is perhaps the most likely candidate for a potential Morgana skin. To make the two characters resemble each other, Blizzard could give Wrecking Ball some cat ears and change the colors of his mech to black, yellow, and blue.
The studio could even go the extra mile by making Wrecking Ball’s mech look like Morgana’s bus form, but since none of the skins for the character can change his shape, it will probably not do this.
Unlike Morgana, Haru, Yusuke, and Futaba, it’s a bit harder to draw comparisons between the heroes of Overwatch 2 and Persona 5‘s Phantom Thieves. Even still, there is some room for speculation. Since they have similar body types and wear skin-tight outfits, for instance, it’s possible that either D.Va or Widowmaker will be given an Ann Takamaki skin.
Meanwhile, because they’re both known for leaving calling cards, maybe Genji will receive a Joker skin, as well. As for Akechi, Kasumi, Makoto, and Ryuji, on the other hand, it’s anyone’s guess as to which Overwatch 2 hero Blizzard may pair them up with.
6/10
August 10, 2023
T For Teen // Blood, Mild Language, Use of Tobacco, Violence
Proprietary Engine
