Greetings, gamers! You’ve probably noticed that it’s been a hot minute since we’ve posted a Weekly Recall. Thankfully, there’s a fun reason for that: I was a little busy working on our Doctrine Deep Dive and Dokiwatch panels for BlizzCon. Everyone on the Overwatch team put their all (and many, many cups of coffee) into giving you the best BlizzCon possible. We hope you had a great time, whether you were in the crowd or watching at home!
A major part of scripting a panel is information gathering; for the Dokiwatch panel, we aimed for the moon and ended up somewhere near Pluto. There were enough fun facts and lore tidbits left on the proverbial cutting room floor to build out an entire 2 Doki 2 Furious panel.
Instead of subjecting the world to that, we decided to lay out a buffet-style Weekly Recall for all the Doki Darlings out there. Jump to your favorite Hollow Heart (it’s Ramattra, we already know) or devour some behind-the-scenes info from our Dokiwatch developers. Enjoy!
What You Missed In 1.0
- When Dokiwatch first launched in 2025, the second season hadn’t been greenlit. But the team behind this sparkling alternate universe made sure to plan ahead, even if another run wasn’t guaranteed. "We left those breadcrumbs anyway,” said Ren Soanes, now a worldbuilding producer on the Overwatch team (and our Dokiwatch project lead).
- For example, at the end of the first Dokiwatch comic, Nocturna was swept away from danger by a figure recognizable as Lifeweaver, though his mean-and-green Woebringer look hadn’t been locked in yet.
- A mysterious silhouette was shown in Kiriko’s ofuda, teasing the addition of another Hero of Heart in the future. You could even see this silhouette in-game as a part of Kiriko’s Heart of Passion skin. Ahead of 2.0, it was changed to more clearly show Anran’s Heart of Tenacity silhouette.
- Even in the first blog about Dokiwatch, we noted that Mercy’s absence would be relevant in the future. Turns out the team was already plotting out a second comic that would revolve around the consequences of Mercy’s decision to leave the Heroes of Heart after losing Nocturna (Hana Song, also known as D.Va) to Woe.
- Thanks to overwhelming support from the Overwatch community, the team got the go-ahead for a second season that included a two-part comic, official merch, and another bundle of cosmetics.
Heroes and Hollows
Anran
- Senior concept artist Florencia Kristiani oversaw the production of Anran’s Dokiwatch design and wanted her to “emanate big sister energy” within the squad. She also made sure the sharp, strong lines in Anran’s design contrasted nicely with the “lovable round shape” of her familiar, Hermes. There’s even some sibling resemblance baked in: “I could totally imagine the bird having Wuyang’s spirit and attitude,” Florencia said.
- The initial pitch that Anran’s faithful familiar should be a bird came from senior narrative designer Joshi Zhang, which led the team to consult their Catalog of Cute Animals to nail down a visual design. Yes, that’s a real thing they developed when initially designing Mercy’s Mythic weapon, and an unused concept of a round bird ended up becoming Anran’s little phoenix. “Not to reheat your own nachos, but sometimes you have ideas that are good but aren’t good for that specific thing,” Ren said.
Mercy
- For the weapon in the Heart of Mercy Dokiwatch 2.0 skin, the art team had to come up with a creative solution to ensure it aligned with the comic’s lore. Her Merciful Magitech Mythic Weapon (released with Dokiwatch 1.0) represented the full expression of Mercy’s power and featured her familiar, Eleos, doing adorable backflips. Since the 2.0 comic explores Mercy’s journey to that power, the default weapon for this cosmetic had to align with that story. Guess who’s in the blue egg at the end of her staff? “This is where Eleos is sleeping before he’s out in the Mythic weapon!” explained Florencia.
- The Overwatch team put out a series of short story videos for the first run of Dokiwatch that showed Mercy using the Merciful Magitech Mythic Weapon while wearing the Dr. Ziegler Legendary skin. Never say the Dokiwatch team doesn’t follow through: in the 2.0 comic, you’ll notice that Mercy is rocking the pants and glasses from the Dr. Ziegler skin alongside her Doki-themed sweater. They knew she’d be an overworked Wuxing University teaching assistant even when 1.0 was in production. It’s a full circle moment!
Illari
- “I generally like to treat Dokiwatch as its own universe, but [Illari] is one that really took a beat from canon,” said Ren. Illari’s experiences give her insight into why Ramattra (in the Dokiwatch universe) would choose to forget his grief and willingly fall to Woe. That push and pull friendship—as well as Ramattra not being able to accept that their actions are wrong at this point in his journey—is one area the team wishes they had more pages to explore in the comic.
- Illari’s Hollow Hearts name, Eclypse, was inspired by the “visual of darkness blocking out the light of the sun, in the way that Illari’s tragedy blocks out the rays of her happiness much of the time,” Joshi explained.
- Her familiar’s full title is Iphegenia, the Chinchilla of Destruction. Watch out for that rodent!
Ramattra
- In the Dokiwatch universe, Ramattra is known as Malus. Joshi derived this name from the Latin root “Malum,” which translates to “evil.”
- Ramattra was the last addition to the Dokiwatch 2.0 lineup. The other Heroes had already been locked in, but the Hollow Hearts needed a believable right-hand man for Woebringer. “He could be a baddie, but he could also be masculine and sophisticated at the same time,” Ren said. Malus is a direct nod to the genre of anime villains who do evil, dirty work but still look pristine in a suspiciously white suit.
- Where the Dokiwatch team borrowed from canon in Illari’s case, they subverted it for Ramattra’s turn as Malus. Ramattra is a revolutionary leader in Overwatch canon who always seems to have everything together, so it felt interesting to test how he would handle being someone’s second-in-command.
- Malus’ familiar—Hyacinth, the Owl of Anguish—is adorable in-game but has far deeper lore as far as naming is concerned. In Greek myth, Hyacinth is one of Apollo’s lovers who dies after being hit with a discus. Only by losing him is Apollo able to understand the depths of grief that humanity carries. You could say Apollo learned to suffer…as they have.
Lifeweaver
- In turning Lifeweaver into Woebringer, the Dokiwatch team intentionally changed very little about his personality aside from his moral alignment. Lifeweaver is charismatic, perceptive, and persuasive in Overwatch’s canon and uses those powers to make the world a brighter and more beautiful place. Imagining what would happen if he didn’t was the key to unlocking Woebringer’s power.
- Our big bad is deeply empathetic and picks up on the relationships between the Heroes of Heart to exploit them. This is something we see Lifeweaver do all the time in canon, but in a positive way. In Dokiwatch, he’s allowed to be a true menace. “It was fun to let Lifeweaver use all of his charm for evil,” said Ren.
- That subversion echoes what the team did for Woe itself. They didn’t want to have to overly explain the concept of Woe within the comic; it was something they wanted readers to pick up on naturally. Tying Woe together with real-life grief—something almost everyone understands and sees the destructive power of—lets the audience immediately understand what’s at stake.
- We’ll end this with an, uh, delicious tidbit: the idea of Woebringer’s familiar, the Snake God of Gloom, originated from the fact that snakes often eat rodents, like hamsters. Sorry, Eleos.
Thank you for coming on this Doki journey with us! Dokiwatch 2.0 cosmetics drop later today (October 20) and will be available through November 9. We can’t wait to see those sparkles in-game. Until next time, gamers!