Overwatch reveals Anran redesign following player and voice actor backlash

Blizzard has revealed the promised redesign for Overwatch character Anran, after players and her voice actor said she didn’t look right.

In February, Blizzard announced a major content update for Overwatch 2, which included the dropping of the ‘2’ from its name and the addition of 10 new heroes.

One of these, a damage character called Anran, previously appeared in an animated trailer in August 2025 introducing her younger brother Wuyang. When she was confirmed as playable in the game, however, players complained that her design had been completely changed, making her look younger and too much like some of the other female Overwatch heroes.

Things reached a head when streamer Fareeha, who voices Anran in the game, took to X to say she didn’t like the new design, and that she “got to mourn Anran between the design I had hoped for and the design we ended up with”.

Overwatch game director Aaron Keller promised that Anran would be redesigned and now, in a new video on the official Overwatch YouTube channel and X account, that redesign was revealed.

“We want our heroes to feel unique, but we also want their visuals to match their personality, and we feel like we didn’t quite land that when Anran first released,” Keller said in the new video.

“We think she could come across older, and that her original version was too innocent and playful. Anran is confident, determined, fierce and a natural born leader, and we want her visuals in-game to convey that personality, so we made some adjustments to her face.”

Keller explained that Anran’s eyebrows, eyes and mouth had been tweaked to “move away from that baby face, look and expression to something more sincere and more mature”.

“We’re really happy with the way these changes turned out, and also that she has a closer resemblance to her brother Wuyang,” Keller added.

Player reaction on social media has been mixed, with some happy with the changes, others believing the changes don’t go far enough, and others believing Blizzard shouldn’t have had to make any changes in the first place.

One person happy with the change, however, is Anran’s voice actor Fareeha, who wrote on X: “So grateful for this update, she looks much more like the strong older sibling we knew her to be. Thank you [Blizzard] Team 4 and thank you Overwatch community.”