For Blizzard Entertainment senior technical artist Takki Thammawan, getting a job working on Overwatch 2 was a dream he didn’t realize could ever come true. He grew up in Thailand playing mostly Japanese video games with his brother, and when he moved to the US to pursue an arts career. Overwatch 1 was the first Blizzard game he played, resulting in him making jokes about one day getting involved with the franchise. Flash forward to 2021, and now he was working with some of the people he looked up to as a gaming fan.
But that’s just the first part of what’s been a dream-making few years, Thammawan told R29 Entertainment Director and Twitch host Melissah Yang during Thursday’s Twitch stream. As part of his work, the artist directly inspired Overwatch 2’s newest majestic healing hero Lifeweaver, who was revealed last month and also happens to be the series’ first-ever Thai and openly queer character.
As Thammawan tells it, Lifeweaver’s origin story started two years ago when he was still pretty new to the team. There was a brainstorming session for Overwatch 2 season three, which had an Asian mythology theme, that Thammawan was invited to. “I was so excited — everyone at this table was my hero and I wanted to fanboy at them,” he said, going on to explain that he spent the weekend making a 30-minute Powerpoint presentation pitching “a lifetime’s” worth of Thai skin ideas. “My goal was to pretty much convince the team to feel comfortable making a Thai skin. I know it can be a little tricky to make a skin based on inspiration from a region that you are not too familiar with. But having me be there as a [Thai person], I had to tell them how they have done it to make it right.”
It’s a topic that the video game artist is super passionate about. There aren’t many major Thai game characters, at least not that he’s come across, and the few that do exist are often similar: powerful brutes who are highly skilled in Muay Thai. They’re cool, but Thammawan wanted to see more variety in the characters representing his home.
What he didn’t know was that, as the brainstorming session took place, the concept team was also independently working on the visual development for Lifeweaver at the time. As they watched the presentation, something clicked. They went back to work and a couple of weeks later, they invited Thammawan to another meeting to give him news that he still can’t quite believe. “They showed me Lifeweaver and were like, ‘Guess what? Lifeweaver is Thai now because your presentation inspired us so much,’” he said. “Imagine me being at that meeting. Working on Overwatch was already a dream of mine — a dream that I didn’t even know was going to be true. Working on a new hero was an added dream. But I never expected this new hero to be Thai, and one that I helped inspire. My jaw was pretty much on the floor.”
From there, Thammawan and the rest of the Lifeweaver team — which included Thai localization experts on the ground — joined forces to help bring the character to life, focusing on aspects like his design, look, style, voice and dialogue to ensure authenticity.
Thammawan couldn’t wait to finally reveal the character to avid gamers — he took the day off the day the trailer went out so he could spend it reading the comments — but he was a little nervous, too. It’s a big responsibility that he’s proud to carry, but he’s just one Thai person, after all, who can’t claim to represent an entire country and culture just himself. Still, the reception, he said, has been amazing. Fans have even been reaching out to him to share their reaction to Lifeweaver, ranging from a lot of joy, love and some tears.
“I’ve always known that representation is important — but when it happens to you, like in this case with Lifeweaver, I realized what it feels like to be represented and acknowledged,” Thammawan said, adding that everyone who worked on Lifeweaver cared just as much as he did, regardless of if they were Thai or not. “I could say it is probably my greatest achievement to be working on this team.”
Refinery29 Twitch streams Thursdays at 2 p.m. PT/5 p.m. ET.
