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Symmetra, full name Satya Vaswani, a character who first appeared in the 2016 video game Overwatch, a Blizzard Entertainment–developed first-person hero shooter, and the resulting…
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Investigate this subjectSymmetra, full name Satya Vaswani, a character who first appeared in the 2016 video game Overwatch, a Blizzard Entertainment–developed first-person hero shooter, and the resulting franchise. Voiced by Anjali Bhimani, she makes later appearances in related literary media and the game's sequel, Overwatch 2.
Symmetra, full name Satya Vaswani, a character who first appeared in the 2016 video game Overwatch, a Blizzard Entertainment–developed first-person hero shooter, and the resulting franchise. Voiced by Anjali Bhimani, she makes later appearances in related literary media and the game's sequel, Overwatch 2. Conceived by Jeff Kaplan and designed by Arnold Tsang, the character was conceived due to a desire to include a classic fantasy wizard into the game's science fiction setting, expressed through her ability to create constructs from thin air using hard-light technology. A woman of Indian descent, she works for the Vishkar Corporation, protecting their interests while working to expand their influence despite her concerns about their intentions. Since the game's release she has appeared in various spinoff media related to the franchise, including comics and merchandise. Voicelines in the game suggests that she studied or worked alongside Lifeweaver during her time at the Vishkar Corporation.
Symmetra as a fictional character was mostly well received since her debut, albeit with some criticisms on how Blizzard handled her cultural aspects. The developers were heavily praised for their approach to how she is portrayed as a person on the autism spectrum, finding it a breath of fresh air compared to most pop-culture depictions and applauded for their subtle approach to the subject as just one of many character traits she has. Her gameplay in Overwatch however proved far more divisive, resulting in a rift in the player community as some assumed she was chosen by players to either grief or troll their teammates, resulting in Symmetra players receiving verbal abuse or attempts to ban them from the game. Said players argued in favor of her, countering that they enjoyed her strategic gameplay and saw her as a tactical choice in the team-based game.
While working on a massive multiplayer online game concept for Blizzard Entertainment, developer Geoff Goodman suggested the idea of a large number of character classes for players to select, but with class specialization for each. Fellow developer Jeff Kaplan took this idea to heart, salvaging character concepts from Titan—a then-recently cancelled Blizzard project—and character artwork by artist Arnold Tsang for that project. Kaplan created an eight-page pitch for a first person shooter concept to propose the idea that included a series of proposed characters, among them a white woman called "Architect" clad in a yellow dress with exposed thighs, armed with a blaster and a three-pronged "arc welder" replacing her left hand on a cybernetic arm. The concept went through several revisions afterword before returning to the original proposal design as a base, renaming the character "Symmetra" and making her a woman of Indian descent. The design was one of the final twenty designs to be featured on the main pitch image for Prometheus, which once approved, later materialized into Overwatch.
Symmetra was one of the first twelve playable characters introduced upon the reveal of Overwatch at the November 2014 BlizzCon event. Blizzard let her backstory grow organically. They initially developed Symmetra's Vishkar Corporation storyline with little relation to the rest of Overwatch but later saw opportunities to expand while developing stories for other characters. Symmetra is also autistic, something originally only alluded to in a tie-in comic for the game until a fan asked Kaplan directly and he confirmed it in a letter response. The Overwatch developers also noted they wanted to not tokenize this particular trait, and instead emphasize their characters as an amalgam of traits. To this end, they added subtle commentary in her in-game dialogue expressing a desire for order and aversion to overstimulation. Overwatch 2's narrative designer Joshi Zhang fleshed out this aspect further in 2022, giving her voice lines that referenced her heightened sensory input and behaviors that allow her to stim.
Standing 5 feet 7 inches (170 cm) tall, her design came from a desire to include a classic fantasy wizard into the game's science fiction setting. The Architect concept became a "Technomancer", a character meant to be able to summon technology out of thin air similar to a mage conjuring magic. To this end her finalized design incorporated a blue dress with gold trim and thigh-high black stockings to give the imagery of a mage's robes. When designing her weapon and equipment, artists Roman Kenney and Ben Zhang worked to keep a uniform feel between them. Particular consideration was given to her weapon, which was separated from her left arm and carried via a pistol grip in her right hand, while the palm of her left enabled her to summon hard-light constructs to complete the mage aesthetic. Originally Symmetra was intended to wear a large finned helmet covering the top of their head allowing her to view the world through augmented reality, with long black hair flowing behind said helmet. It was later shortened to a finned visor with transparent blue front to allow players to see her face, incorporating a maang tikka in its design while long earrings dangled from her ears. For Overwatch 2, her design was slightly altered, changing the rest to an angled sash across her torso and thigh atop a blue jacket, while her stockings were changed into pants with white highlights.
Like other Overwatch characters, Symmetra received skins, unlockable cosmetic items to change her in-game appearance. When developing them, they wanted to reference her scientific background, but also her role as a skilled architect at a major organization. Of particular note, the "Vishktar" skin presents her in a blue-and-white lab uniform with her hair tied into a bun and her visor front replaced with orange lenses. Her "Oasis" skin, on the other hand, was meant to represent the visual themes of the in-game city of Oasis, a scientific community located in Iraq. The "Devi" skin referenced her cultural background
Source: Symmetra (CC BY-SA)
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