Talk:Characters of the Overwatch franchise

Split list content from prose content

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to not split. Kung Fu Man (talk) 07:11, 13 January 2026 (UTC)

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I suggest splitting the actual list of characters, in Characters of the Overwatch franchise#Characters, into a dedicated article, List of Overwatch characters. @Masem, who in recent RM mentioned this article. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:40, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose While the list is indeed massive, I don't see any useful reason to do that: you'd end up with two articles requiring the same sources for reception and development. It defeats the point, and even then, what would be the purpose of this article after such a split?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 09:13, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  In addition to keeping both articles more menageable, it will make it clear which one is a list, and which isn't. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:54, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  PS. Right now, the article is categorized under Category:Lists of Blizzard characters. But is it a list - or isn't it? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:54, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  It's developed, but it's clearly a list.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:00, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  @Kung Fu Man Fair. Then how about renaming it to List of Overwatch characters? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 12:23, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  Nope, that doesn't make sense, because its more than just a list. We have no requirements for naming to be that standardized. And even if you talk about standard naming, its far more comparable to things like Characters of Final Fantasy VII (which are also categorized as List of FF characters) Masem (t) 12:41, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  @Masem I think part of the problem is there was never a concrete setup discussed on how to approach which is which; we tried on WT:VGCHAR, but it never got entirely concrete, and it didn't help with other projects complained about the inconsistency in naming/quality rating. It doesn't help either on some of the character list move discussions Piotrus set up that Zxcvbnm has tried to say such naming was done to try and "work around policy".--Kung Fu Man (talk) 12:48, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  In reply to a discussion at Characters of the BioShock series (which I agree should be at List of...) is that with most of the articles listed as "Characters of..." , the grouping of characters is WP:N - notable with development and reception sections about the entire group as a whole, not just lumped coverage of individual characters. So while treated as a list in terms of its classification, its treated as an article on a notable topic otherwise in terms of organization and naming. If that info doesn't exist, then its far easier to be clear its just a list-list, titled as "List of..." as to qualify under the non-notable aspects of WP:LISTN. Masem (t) 15:08, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  See that's what's confusing me: for WP:LISTN, it needs to show there's reception for the group of characters as a whole in them. As we've seen with the Kirby or Killer Instinct character lists, just because some individual characters have notability it's still seen as failing notability if the whole cast isn't covered by reception. I think with the Bioshock list, there is definitely some discussion in that regard per the Sources Exist tag, just not represented in the article?--Kung Fu Man (talk) 15:47, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  The second paragraph of LISTN is what I had in mind. basically, its nearly impossible to AFD a list of characters from a major series (video game or otherwise) as LISTN, generally summarized that "notability doesn't apply to stand-alone lists", is usually the reason that backs the !keeps. If we were more rigorous with only the first paragraph of LISTN, a LOT of character lists (and other lists related to fictional works) would be removed. Masem (t) 17:58, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

  I think what you are saying makes a lot of sense - the topic of "Characters of XYZ" can exist as an article if we, rather obviously, have reliable sources discussing them as a groip (and presumbly going beyond plot summary / game guide). It would be good to write that up somewhere in wikipedia space, even as an essay, preferably as a project (VG?)-endorsed recommendation. That said, I still think we should try to split lists from articles, to reduce mess with naming/categorization/assessment. Of course, per WP:SUMMARY, we can and should have a bit of an overlap, with each article clearly linking to another, if both exists (realistially, it is very hard to imagine a case we would have just "Characters of..." and not a "List of characters of...", given the aformentioned lower notability requirements for the latter (and the fact it is easier to write too)). But yes, I still believe we should be splitting those topics, as I suggested above - or at least renaming them to list first (KFM himself said, just above, "it's clearly a list" - so at minimum, we should make this clear in the name, right?). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 01:26, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

  There's nothing in policy or guidelines that lists should be separate from articles that describe the content of those lists, many articles (beyond just fictional characters) include lists after introducing the topic with prose. It simply doesn't make any sense or meet any requirement that where we have some type of listing, it must exist alone in its own list article. In most cases, the prose that is not part of the list is providing context that makes sense to keep everything together in one comprehensive article. Masem (t) 02:32, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose Makes no sense, the stuff about development adds context to the list part. And just because its categorized as a list doesn't mean it is strictly a list. A list-style article is bare-bones to just the list. This at least gives this more article-like nature with a list appended on it, which is absolutely fine to have and done all over the place. Masem (t) 12:22, 27 September 2025 (UTC)

Oppose per others. Clearly a list and splitting the content doesn't seem helpful for understanding the subject. The article is absolutely fine as it is. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 03:24, 28 September 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per above. Keeping them together will make it easier to understand. GothicGolem29 (talk) 17:16, 12 October 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Two new concerns on this page

With the new changes with the Feb 2026 rebrand to Overwatch, there's two new issues on this page to consider:

• First is the size, which Kung Fu Man pointed out to me elsewhere. We're going to add 10 heroes in the next year, and likely more. KFM believes they've spun off those that can actually have notability character articles (they would know, this is KFM has been doing a lot of across video games), and its not likely that every new character will be notable. That's going to make the page size unweildy. Splitting doesn't make sense, because the splits would be along the lines of "List of tank characters in Overwatch" and there would be a lot of weirdness. Instead I think we need to talk about trimming down. We likely no longer can fully cover a hero's kit, but explain their major attacks briefly (eg "Ana's rifle can fire healing shots at allies and damaging shots at foes, and she can also throw a biotic grenage with splash healing or damaging effects. She can also shoot a dart temporarily putting enemies to sleep, and her ultimate fully heals an allies and temporarily boosts their strength"), and trim down narratives, as well as other trims. Ideally, that ends up with a paragraph, at most two, for each hero.

• The other aspect is both the introduction of subroles and the Overwatch/Talon affliation. While we could add the subroles that would push the hero names to an H4 header and fall off the TOC. Instead, I propose a leading table that lists the hero, role, subrole, affiliation, and date/season introduced into the Overwatch franchise.

Masem (t) 01:10, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

• Reading up on the sub-roles, I do think they're less defining than Blizzard wants to make it seem at a glance. Like if you say Tank, Damage or Support, that sticks out helps define their role in people's minds. But the sub-roles are essentially passive kits for the characters, and they've already played extremely loose the actual classes have. The affiliation's another thing to consider, but outright Talon villains like Doomfist and Moira have been listed alongside Rheinhardt and Mercy without issue, so I don't feel an affiliation separation is necessary either.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 02:10, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

  That's why I think those can just be stuck into a table and not try to organize the page around them, keeping to the three main roles and then alpha sorting. Masem (t) 05:11, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

As someone unfamiliar with the series:

-Is the non-playable section really necessary? Most of them at a glance seem like background characters with little elaboration, especially given the lack of narrative in this series.

-Character skill descriptions can likely be trimmed down (Do we really need definitions of all of their main attacks? Most can be kept to an easily identifiable gimmick or trait, especially given many have separate articles to cover their kits more)

-Overall info on individual characters can be trimmed to just the bare essentials needed to understand their deal. Otherwise perhaps this list could be kept strictly to just notable characters, perhaps, instead of including the numerous non-notable heroes without much discussion?

Mostly just spitballing but that's just what I see from a glance. Magneton Considerer: Pokelego999 (Talk) (Contribs) 21:20, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

We can likely remove some of the non-playables to save space. Where they are relevant (Efie for Orisa) that can be mentioned in their brief background statement. Masem (t) 21:21, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

We could get rid of most of the NPC section. I think Maximilien and Dr. Liao are the most notable ones to keep. Maybe Antonio and Mondatta to a lesser extent. The rest can be deleted or, as Masem said, possibly integrated into relevant playable characters' backgrounds as a passing mention. Wani (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2026 (UTC)

I agree, I removed two of them. Antonio can be covered enough in Doomfist and Vendetta's summaries, same with Mondatta in Ramattra and Widowmaker. Max feels like the one necessary stand-alone character, in part because they use him both narratively and as a in-game shop mechanism.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 22:22, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Total amount of heroes and rebranding name

There are a total of 50 heroes now, and they rebranded the title of the game from "Overwatch 2" back to "Overwatch". AnonX365 (talk) 11:03, 27 February 2026 (UTC)

10th anniversary heroes image

Apparently, they posted a comparable image for the 10th anniversary (eg up to including Sierra) over on their Weibo account , but I'm not yet able to verify. I'd rather make sure I can source to an official Blizzard/OW outlet than trust a random image. Masem (t) 11:51, 25 May 2026 (UTC)