D.Mon is designed as the cool, composed, and supremely confident leader to contrast D.Va’s hyper-aggressive, dive-heavy play style.
As one of the foundational and undeniably most iconic figures on the roster, Overwatch’s D.Va is a tough act to follow. Yet that’s the exact challenge facing the game’s newest hero. Yuna “D.Mon” Lee. The incoming tank set to drop into Season 4 on 11 August, is only the second mech-based hero to join the lineup since D.Va.
Much like her comrade, D.Mon is an ex-esports-champ-turned-mech-pilot.
But introducing a second mech tank into a game where D.Va’s play style remains one of the most distinct created a massive design hurdle for Blizzard: How do you create a fresh character who stands out on her own merits while still honouring the core identity of South Korea’s MEKA Squad?
D.Mon
During a round-table interview with members of the Overwatch development team, narrative designer Eleni Rivera explained that despite both heroes occupying the tank role and piloting massive war machines, their differences stem from how real-world gamers gravitate towards contrasting roles and archetypes.
“I think one of the biggest things is they both came from this eSports champion league. So gaming is a really big core of both of them, but we wanted to make sure that they were very distinct. The way that you do that is you think about two different types of gamers, right? You’ve got your [In-game leader], but then you’ve got the person who’s like, ‘I’m ready to just be the support,’ or maybe ‘I’m just gonna tank.’ And I think that that’s kind of where we went with Yuna and Hana, and that’s where we wanted to differentiate them, so they can still stand out.”
Where D.Va excels at diving in and out of fight zones, harassing enemies with micro-missiles, and clearing objectives by detonating her mech, D.Mon takes a far more grounded approach.
Moving closer to a character like Reinhardt, D.Mon wields a sword and shield, establishing her as a core melee tank rather than a ranged shooter.
Narrative
Narratively, this reflects her position as the steadfast leader of the MEKA Squad. While D.Va headed off on her own as a high-flying member of Overwatch, D.Mon stayed grounded in Busan to lead her unit.
Mechanically, it gave the developers room to experiment with a completely different mech framework.
“We wanted to expand on the melee tank side of things,” says senior game producer Kenny Hudson.
“Reinhardt has been an insanely fun character for 10 years, and we wanted to do another kind of take on that and give those players who like to play up close and personal with their tanks more to choose from. D.Mon’s going to kind of have the same counters as either Rein or Doomfist or those other kind of melee tanks. Or semi-melee tanks, in Doomfist’s case, where verticality is going to be the counter, but you’re going to have really good horizontal movement and the ability to kind of flank a little, still be in front, but take up more physical space and maybe set the rules of engagement a bit more with D.Mon. So we really wanted to explore what happens when you give a melee tank a little bit more mobility, but you put it on a resource and you kind of block what she can do when she has that mobility.”
Land on that archetype wasn’t instantaneous. The development team turned to mech classics like Armoured Core and Gundam to fine-tune her kit. Specifically her swordplay and horizontal boost mechanics.
Though D.Mon has cropped up in Overwatch lore before (typically as a supporting character in D.Va’s storyline where she was pictured with a shield and blade). Those elements weren’t always designed to function the way they do now.
“The big swap that we made was D.Mon’s sword and gun actually used to be swapped and the sword was actually on a cooldown,” Hudson reveals.
“One of the problems that we ran into there was having the sword swing feel natural while on a button ability and having it kind of link up with the shield and getting timing right and everything. Using your gun as the primary just felt a little kind of unnatural while you have the sword. There was just a lot of stuff there. All the individual pieces felt good, but together as a kit they just felt a little bit off. Once we made that swap, we actually physically swapped the sides they were on, swapped how often one was up, and the primary of the other. It felt great. All of a sudden the kit came to life.”
Playstyles
The divergence in play styles and demeanours between D.Va and D.Mon is also woven directly into their visual designs.
Because D.Mon relies far more on physical presence and heavy melee strikes, her posture and mech build were crafted to echo that weight.
“Both D.Va and D.Mon are both in the MEKA Squad, so they naturally, organically have that visual link to each other,” notes lead character concept artist Daryl Tan.
“They both wear the same type of body suits, and they also both pilot mechs. And so that’s where the similarities are. We did our best to make them both visually unique and distinct from each other. D.Va is more hunched and guns forward, like a very aggressive pose, whereas D.Mon is more upright when she uses the sword and board, which is the fantasy we were trying to shoot for. That really helps us really distinguish them from each other right from the kit. Organically it just also shows off D.Mon’s more athletic nature, right? Because we also made sure that her cockpit design and everything showcased her being able to execute her moves physically. Like, you see her swing her sword in her cockpit, and the mech is doing the same thing.”
Expect those personal and tactical differences to be fleshed out further in upcoming lore drops, detailing how the pair support one another alongside the rest of the MEKA Squad.
“They’re besties, they know each other, they back each other up,” Rivera says.
“I think that was a challenge, but a good challenge, if that makes sense, where we got a chance to explore [that] team dynamic, friendship dynamic and make sure that D.Mon felt like her own self, and not, like, players would think, ‘Oh, this is just a D.Va 2.0.’ We want her to feel like she’s this standout hero, and she’s got her own motivations, her own griefs.”
“D.Mon is very team-leader first,” Rivera continues. “So she’s all about the team, versus D.Va might be dive in, dive out, do her own thing. We saw that with the Shooting Star cinematic. D.Mon is all about being a team player. She’s icy, she’s cool, she’s very confident. And I think that’s where we separate the two.”
Lore
D.Va isn’t the only hero on D.Mon’s radar either. As shown in her animated trailer, D.Mon harbours a particularly bitter feud with Junker factions like Wrecking Ball and Junker Queen following their raids on Busan.
“I think that’s the fun part about introducing a hero,” Rivera adds.
“How do they fit in with all the other heroes that we have? Just naturally, based off of the story that you guys are gonna see, there is a lot that D.Mon has to say [and] relationships that we’re gonna see her build throughout. Vendetta did send the Junkers out to go attack Busan, and then you’ve got D.Va. So you will have a lot of dynamics between her and other characters, you know, now and in the future.”
Naturally, with two MEKA pilots now playable, fans are wondering whether the remaining three squad mates (King, Casino, and Overlord) might eventually make their way onto the roster.
While Blizzard felt D.Mon was the right fit for this exact beat in Overwatch’s story, the door remains wide open.
“When it came to D.Mon, it felt like the right call,” Rivera concludes.
“Looking at the entire roster of the MEKA Squad, [we asked ourselves] what does each character bring to the table in terms of story? At the time, it was just so clear that it was D.Mon. In terms of [the] future, we’re not sure what we’ll be able to do or what we [plan] on doing. But I do think that we’ll still chase the goal of bringing interesting characters that people resonate to and that they gravitate towards and want to play. Sometimes we reach into the vault of people that we already know, and then the vault of ‘Let’s create something new for the players to enjoy.’”
Overwatch just keeps growing
After the the troublesome Overwatch 2 years, it’s really great to see Overwatch go from strength to strength again.
D.Mon looks like a solid addition, even if it’s just stylistically. Although the thought and effort put into her purpose, her role, her weight and movement mean we’re likely to get a good new hero.
How this will shift the meta, and potentially up-end the Reinhardt mains will be really interesting.
The hero trailer is a lovely slice of anime action, and whilst my boy Wrecking Ball gets the rough end of things, it’s great to see him involved.
It’s kind of crazy that Overwatch, Battlefield, Halo and PUBG are still in regular rotation after all this time. Where other games falter, these are timeless, and D.Mon is here to add another string to an already impressive bow.
