Blizzard explains why Overwatch won’t get Australia fire charity skins

Blizzard has said that they won’t be able to make charity Overwatch skins to help with the Australian fires due to how the game’s developers go about designing new skins.

The massive wildfires that have been raging in Australia have prompted a ton of people to donate to charities helping out, and even inspired games like Modern Warfare to offer in-game bundles in support.

A lot of Overwatch fans have been asking about the possibility of Blizzard cooking up a special skins for Junkrat or Roadhog, the game’s resident Aussies, to benefit wildfire relief.

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Inspired by the suggestion, Overwatch fan and concept artist Armando Golzalez-Dorta created their own version of a Firefighter Roadhog skin, which is pretty awesome itself.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Blizzard will be able to get a special skin out anytime soon to help the fire, according to Overwatch Contenders North American Lead Kayla Glover.

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“It would be [cool],” Glover said in response to a fan who was talking about the skins “But in-game skins aren’t planned, designed, tested, and implemented that quickly in any quality dev cycle.”

“Though, Blizzard did start matching all employee donations (retroactively too) to help,” she added. “So that’s something at least.”

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Overwatch does have a history of charity skins, like the Pink Mercy that benefitted breast cancer research, but there’s no telling how long that one actually spent in development.

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In all honesty, if Overwatch fans really want to donate to help things with the Australian wildfires, there’s nothing stopping them from giving money directly to charities themselves.