One of my favorite things about overwatch as a whole is how much of their energy went into the character animation. Every single one of them has mannerisms that are all unique even down to their “Hello!” hand-waves. Seriously, there’s a difference between Soldier’s slow and minimal open-palmed wave and Ana’s salute, between Sombra’s curly-fingered long nailed wave and Reaper’s wave seeming more like he’s trying to grab something, between Bastion’s choppy finger-wave and the repair module waving in sentry mode and Genji’s short bow with a distinctive hand motion. It’s all completely unique to each character to express something about their personalities even with the same general motion.
This isn’t even the half of it. Compare EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER’S seated emote for example. Even if characters are in the same pose, like McCree and Bastion and Lucio? The way they ENTER those poses is completely different. McCree holsters his gun and sets his hand on the ground before seating. Bastion spreads their legs a bit, balances with their arms, and then PLOMPS onto the dirt unceremoniously. Lucio fuckin BREAKDANCES into his seat, how extra can you get, what a show-off, I love him.
And the guys who take a knee instead of sitting down??? Also completely different. Pharah does a little flourish with her weapon before kneeling. Soldier just sweeps into it, all no-nonsense and efficient. Ana sweeps her cloak behind her first and gently eases into the kneel. Reinhardt fuckin hefts his hammer murder-side down and kneels like a knight, gazing slightly upwards to some imaginary monarch he’s in the service of. Zarya clonks her whole gun on the ground and kneels beside it, and it really starts to make sense just how BIG and HEAVY that thing is when you see it beside her like that.
The meditators? Fuckin. Nothing is safe from the character quirks and differences. Genji makes some kind of hand pose on one foot and balances into meditation, keeping his hand near his face. Zenyatta hovers a little lower, bows his head, and his orbs spread out to chime like prayer bells. Hanzo sets his bow down and sits seiza, with his hands on his knees. On that note, Mei also sits seiza but doesn’t meditate, instead awkwardly looking around and glancing at snowball for confidence.
And the COMPLETELY unique poses are probably my favorites. Junkrat wants you to paint him like one of your French girls, fingers tapping on the ground and OOZING such misplaced confidence and insanity that I can’t NOT love him. D.Va reveals her stash of snack food and plays on her Future GameBoy for a while, completely uninterested in what else is going on. Symmetra’s too pompous and confident to sit on the ground, so she creates a seat for herself out of hard light to sit on instead.
Just. I fucking love this game.
whitemanning critical 