Blizzard have decided to make the newly-released Overwatch League MVP skin, Echo’s Good v Evil skin, the last in the series. The MVP Series of skins featured designs designed by, and dedicated to, Overwatch League‘s top players, though recent controversy has likely influenced Blizzard into curtailing the practice to prevent repeats in the future.
After sexual assault allegations came out against Overwatch League player Siinatra, Blizzard offered refunds to players who bought the accused player’s newly released MVP Skin, Alien Zarya. Following the decision made earlier in March, Blizzard has confirmed the release of Fleta’s new Echo skin, Good v Evil, marks the end of the practice of releasing Overwatch League MVP skins, as mentioned in an official Overwatch League statement.
Despite the end of these personal Overwatch MVP skins, there has been no mention of Championship skins being brought to a close. The Good v Evil Echo skin launched alongside San Francisco Shock’s Midas Roadhog skin as commemoration of its 2020 competitive victory. This is San Francisco Shock’s second skin-based commendation in a row, after the Thunder Doomfist skin was released last year following its success in 2020’s Overwatch League Championship.
The situation with controversial personalities in Overwatch League has come up before. Streamer Felix “xQc” Lengyel, once a player in the Overwatch League, was one of the first to come under pressure from Blizzard for his behavior. The accusations against Siinatra obviously carry far more weight and consequence, and the end of the MVP Skin line is most likely an effort by Blizzard to distance itself from individual players as to avoid controversy.
Overwatch League, now entering its third year in operation, has been the source of many skins prior to this downscaling, including team-based recolors for every hero in the game. A recent experimental gametype has set the stage for an upcoming shift in the League’s playstyle, giving the FPS an arguably needed shakeup, with interesting implications for Overwatch 2 as a result. There have been complaints in the past that Blizzard’s balance team have heavy-handedly prioritized the state of the game based on the Overwatch League over the game’s publicly available competitive modes.
Continuing the Championship skin line to honor teams, rather than individuals, gives Blizzard a layer of separation. This will, ultimately, prevent a scenario like Siinatra’s happening again. While it makes sense professionally, Overwatch players already facing a content drought on the approach to Overwatch 2 will be sad to see another source of new content- even if it’s only an occasional skin- going away.
Source: Overwatch League
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