The developers of Overwatch have revealed the game’s latest tank hero, D.Mon—leader of the MEKA team of human-piloted robot soldiers—and she’s already causing a commotion with giant robot fans or anybody casually interested in occupational safety. D.Mon, like her teammate D.Va, pilots a mech with defensive capabilities. But unlike D.Va who is almost fully enclosed, folded up inside her robot’s cockpit, D.Mon is kinda just out there.
Her face is enclosed with a glass HUD and she has a shield that she can deploy akin to Reinhardt. But when that’s not available, her chest and legs are exposed to the air, which seems kinda bad when your job, as people on social media are pointing out, is to take damage.
Using her body to shield the mech from taking any damage https://t.co/bKgfUuKfij pic.twitter.com/8963JqYucr
— Abyss except nvm (@bottomlessb1tch) August 6, 2026
The Overwatch devs haven’t shared the details behind D.Mon’s design yet, but I can think of a few. For starters, Overwatch has always been very good about giving players the ability to quickly differentiate between heroes, something necessary when you’re in hectic firefights and need to make split-second decisions or identify threats. Though D.Mon and D.Va are related design-wise, the different body profiles likely make it very easy, at a glance, to determine who exactly you’re looking at. Speaking of D.Va, she has the ability to exit her mech, which required the development of separate assets; D.Mon, meanwhile, seems like she stays put. So instead of needing to design two sets of cosmetics for one character, the team only has to do one.
Which brings us to why we’re really here.
Overwatch is a game that’s been overrun with same-faced, conventionally attractive characters. While I’m sure there will be all kinds of valid technical and narrative explanations for why she has her whole ass exposed like that, D.Mon’s design screams “this is for the skins.” She is a mech pilot! When you think about mechs, especially combat mechs, it seems counterintuitive for pilots to have their fleshy bits exposed. Conversely, if you wanted a design with an exposed pilot to actually work, you’d could build the narrative that the mech’s designers think the pilot is disposable—but that’s not the case for the much-beloved, idol-esque MEKA squad. There’s nothing wrong designing characters with potential money-making cosmetics in mind, but it stings when it feels like that’s where the thought process started.
