- Overwatch 2 player creates crossover skins with Baldur’s Gate 3 characters, blending key aspects of both games in unique cosplay fantasies.
- Crossover skins feature Overwatch 2 heroes dressed up as characters like Karlach, Astarion, and Shadowheart from Baldur’s Gate 3, keeping core identities.
- Community response to crossover skins has been positive, with fans praising the blending of key references to Baldur’s Gate 3 characters in designs.
An Overwatch 2 player showed their appreciation for Baldur’s Gate 3 with a series of concept pieces for potential crossover skins. The skins match up beloved Baldur’s Gate 3 party members like Astarion, Karlach, and Shadowheart with playable Overwatch 2 heroes.
Like many live service games that lean on cosmetic additions as a business model, Overwatch 2 is no stranger to crossovers. However Overwatch crossovers are more unique in that its crossover skins often express their crossover fantasies as “cosplay.” Unlike, say, Fortnite crossovers where Marvel superheroes or the rock band Metallica join the game as themselves, most Overwatch crossovers feature the heroes dressed up as characters from series like Cowboy Bebop or One-Punch Man without abandoning their core identities.
Artist IlNextly achieved a similar feat when they posted two sets of Overwatch 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 skin concepts on the Overwatch 2 subreddit. Their first post brought three popular Baldur’s Gate 3 characters into the Overwatch 2 roster: Junker Queen as the fan favorite Tiefling Barbarian Karlach, Baptiste as the Warlock Wyll, and Mercy as Dame Aylin, a Paladin who played a major role in several quests. Their second post added three more crossover costumes: Lightweaver in the role of troubled vampire Astarion, Brigitte as the cleric Shadowheart, and Zenyatta as Withers, who is arguably Baldur’s Gate 3‘s most useful NPC.
Overwatch 2 and Baldur’s Gate Crossover Fan Concepts Include Clever References
LlNextly’s blending of Overwatch 2 characters with Baldur’s Gate 3 party members carefully mixed key aspects of both. In their Junker Queen Karlach skin, the character incorporates Karlach’s red-tinted skin and the glowing flame seen just below her heart, but still strikes the Junker Queen signature idle pose, and equips her unique pair of weapons. Meanwhile, Mercy’s typically winged costume designs and angelic theme fit well with the concept of Dame Aylin, who is an Aasimar, a type of being in Dungeons & Dragons that carries angelic or divine blood in their veins. They also solicited more character pairings from the community to further flesh out their lineup.
The community responded, praising llNextly’s work and suggesting more character crossovers, leading to their next post covering Zenyatta, Astarion and Shadowheart. According to their comments, llNextly included some key references to the Baldur’s Gate 3 characters’ development in their designs. For Lifeweaver as Astarion, llNextly designed Lifeweaver’s petal to resemble a scar on Astarion’s body, which players find out about as they get to know Astarion (or play as him in the main story). And for Shadowheart, llNextly once considered using Widowmaker as the template, but decided that Brigitte suited her more as a character. It also helps that Clerics in Dungeons and Dragons games (such as Baldur’s Gate 3) are quite capable of wielding arms and armor like Brigitte does as a tank.
Overwatch fan artists are once again showing off their affection for the characters that drive the game. Despite developer Blizzard’s seeming abandonment of more ostensibly storytelling-focused modes like PVE, Overwatch‘s players are still interested enough in its playable cast to want to see them dressing up as characters from their favorite games and franchises.