Catching Sunlight - Prototyping Illari’s abilities with the hero design team

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