User:The Millionth One/Moira (Overwatch)

Moira, full name Moira O'Deorain, is a playable character in Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch (2016), a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter. In the game, Moira serves as a villainous healer who can refill her resources by damaging enemies with her main attack. Within the game's story, she is an Irish geneticist who refuses to let any "ethical constraints" interfere with scientific advancement. Leading member of Talon.

Gameplay
Within the game, Moira is considered a Support character. Overwatch executive producer Jeff Kaplan has labelled Moira as a "hybrid" hero; while categorized as a healer, she possesses abilities to also deal a high amount of damage. Her main weapon is the Biotic Grasp, which uses biotic energy to heal allies in a small cone in front of her; the biotic energy is gained by applying the Grasp to opponents to drain their health in a similar cone. Her skills include Fade, allowing her to teleport a short distance, and Biotic Orb, a rebounding sphere that has one of two effects depending on how the player uses it: healing any allies it touches, or damaging enemies it touches. Her ultimate ability is Coalescence, a beam that heals all allies and injuries all opponents it passes, bypassing any shields that may be in place.


 * PC Gamer: "Overwatch pros analyze Moira's strengths, weaknesses, and combos"

Character
Originally from Dublin, Moira O'Deorain made waves in the scientific community more than a decade prior to the game, after publishing a controversial paper detailing a methodology for creating custom genetic programs that could alter DNA at a cellular level. Most scientists found her research dangerous due to its perceived ethical shortfalls, with some even going so far as to accuse her of having the same obsession with scientific advancement that started the Omnic Crisis. Adding to the controversy, other geneticists were unable to reproduce the results of her research. With her career stalled, Moira received a lifeline from an unlikely source: Blackwatch, the covert ops division of Overwatch under the command of Gabriel Reyes. Her involvement with Blackwatch was kept a secret until inquiries following an incident in Venice revealed her work, forcing Overwatch to publicly disavow any ties to her or her work. After Overwatch disbanded, Moira was employed by the Ministries, the scientific collective that founded the city of Oasis in southern Iraq, as the head of the Ministry of Genetics. She was also financed by Talon, and (along with Doomfist and Reaper) is among the members of its ruling council who appear in the game. Her origin story video reveals that she is responsible for transforming Gabriel Reyes into Reaper. She had made an appearance in Doomfist's introductory comic, released earlier in 2017.

[Retribution deserves a mention somewhere here, in all likelyhood.]

Development and design
Moira was announced at BlizzCon 2017 as the game's 26th hero on November 3, 2017, and was made available to play on the Public Test Region a few days later. Moira was added for all players in all regions on November 16, 2017. Kaplan said that Moira had been in the works for months well prior to this, having anticipated that the Overwatch player base had been asking for another healer character. Kaplan believed that Moira's fit as a healer depends on the proper team composition where the team generally stays in close proximity, but that her abilities can help support those that tend to separate from the group, like Genji.

Art-wise, she was envisioned by Arnold Tsang to be a warlock- or mage-like character, with robes, sleeves and hand motions that evoked a use of magic. This subsequently created some difficulty with her character animations, specifically her sleeves; while they had done long flowing clothes before for Reaper, animating the sleeves with the complex hand movements took several months. This particularly was true for her Legendary skins, which animator Hak Lee said took between three and five months to properly animate. Moira's animations in game were found by some journalists to be close references to various anime, such as her running animation matching that of Naruto Uzumaki from the anime Naruto. Chu acknowledged that many of Blizzard's animation team are anime fans and some references had filtered into characters and customization items, and for Moira, the anime-like touches helped to make her character visually distinctive among a fast-paced battled within the game.

Moira is voiced by Genevieve O'Reilly, an Irish voice actress that Chu said was perfect for the role.


 * Telegraph: "Moira interview with lead writer Michael Chu"
 * Mashable interview: "Moira, the new 'Overwatch' healer, grew from a simple idea: We need a villain"
 * GameSpot: Overwatch's Moira Receives An Excellent Tweak In New PTR Patch
 * Wired, on YouTube: Every Overwatch Hero Explained by Blizzard’s Michael Chu ~18:53

Reception

 * Kotaku: "Overwatch Players Are Actually Embracing Moira"
 * "Overwatch's New Character Leads To A Surprising Ship" <- Is this notable enough to be worth mentioning?
 * "Overwatch's New Hero Moira Is A Blast To Play, But Comes With A Learning Curve"
 * Rock, Paper, Shotgun: "Deliciously Moirish: why Overwatch's new support hero is my favourite healer"
 * Heroes Never Die:
 * "First impressions: We played Moira at BlizzCon"
 * "Moira's visual design is a total triumph for Overwatch"
 * "Celebrating the best of Overwatch with the 2017 Pachimari Awards" -- They gave Moira "Best New Hero"
 * VG247: Overwatch: hybrid heroes like Brigitte and Moira are perfect for pushing players out of their comfort zones
 * IGN Access: Overwatch Pros Discuss: Is Moira the Next Big Support?


 * HND: https://www.heroesneverdie.com/2018/4/5/17200654/moira-beret-overwatch-retribution-twitter
 * DotEsports: https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/moira-overwatch-blackwatch-skin-22502