Brigitte Lindholm is the newest character to join the fray in Blizzard’s Overwatch and everyone is pretty excited about her. Well, almost everyone. On the contrary, Paladins president Stewart Chisam appears to be less than amused over the similarities in both concept and design between the new hero and his game’s hero Ash.
Chisam took to Twitter where he posted a picture of both heroes side-by-side accompanied by a picture of a black pot and kettle, writing:
“Quick poll: If I happened to notice and point out any similarities between these two characters, would that make me the pot calling the kettle black, or the kettle calling the pot black?”
At first glance, Chisam does seem to be on to something. Both characters are almost identical thematically, with both being women clad in some kind of knightly armor and having similar sounding — though non-identical functioning — abilities. Brigitte has a Shield Bash, while Ash has a Shoulder Bash; Brigitte has a Barrier Shield, while Ash has a Siege Shield; and both characters have a rallying ability that involves a flag. In fact, the only thing that is decidedly different between the two is that Brigitte has a rocket flail, while Ash uses a cannon.
Despite such similarities, however, an argument can be made that Brigitte was actually inspired by other characters designed by Blizzard. For example, the armor concept could come as a result of her maintaining fellow Overwatch character Reinhardt for so long, while the equipment could be inspired by the flail and shield used by the Crusader in Diablo 3.
At any rate, it’s rather amusing to see someone over on the Paladins’ side questioning the similarities between a new Overwatch character and one from his own game, considering how often people have accused Paladins of copying Overwatch — something that Chisam appears to be aware of.
All in all, situations like this are bound to occur when dealing with games of this nature and it’s doubtful that this will be the last one we hear about.
