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Catching Sunlight - Prototyping Illari’s abilities with the hero design team
28.09.2023 - 19:15 / news.blizzard.com
Illari has taken Overwatch 2 by storm—or rather, by the power of one thousand burning suns. We’re incredibly happy to see that players are enjoying her gameplay, personality, and story. To provide a little more depth and insight into how Illari came to be who she is today, we on the Overwatch 2 hero design team thought we’d share some of how her abilities were created through early prototypes.
Heroes can be inspired by many things! Sometimes, heroes are made from whatever prototypes of abilities we think are cool or have a positive impact on gameplay. Ana is a great example of this—parts of her kit were made before her character and story ever existed.
In Illari’s case, we had a strong starting point because we knew we wanted to theme the hero around the sun. These themes inspired her early abilities as well as her internal codename, Solar.
Prototyping is a journey through different questions, scenarios, and ideas. The goal is to test out and experiment with new things. We ask questions such as: How does this ability feel in relation to other abilities currently in-game? Is the ability making noticeable impact in a match? Are there enough options for counterplay? What does it feel like to land a hit or miss with this ability?
We’d like to offer a little insight into that journey and show you some of the prototyping that led to Illari. As we dive into Solar’s design journey, please keep in mind that these abilities and videos were placeholders through her development.
One of the earliest prototypes we played around with was a blinding ability. After all, this is a hero who gets her power from the Sun!
Solar would throw a grenade-like sun orb, or the spicy basketball in the video below, which would explode and blind enemies within its AOE.
We often use models that are already in the game while we’re still working through prototyping a new ability, which is why Solar’s model looks awfully familiar when she’s dunking on enemies with a basketball blind.
The team experimented with the physics of this ability and how it would affect enemies. After a few changes, the team added VFX of Solar jumping into the air and throwing the blind down onto her enemies.
In the end, we moved away from a blind ability because of the somewhat hidden effectiveness and frustration caused when played against. Solar didn’t feel a noticeable impact using blind, but the person getting blinded felt too much of an impact. We ultimately decided that a full-screen blind was too much for the type of action flow we’re building in Overwatch.
However, the mobility of her leaping into the air felt very symbolic to a sunrise, and was integrated into her finalized ultimate, Captive Sun.
Solar’s healing capabilities went through a lot of ideations and
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