Blizzard finally unveiled the five Persona 5 collaboration skins it’s bringing to Overwatch 2 yesterday, and as Overwatch fans tend to do, they had a pretty wide spread of reactions. When you have 44 heroes, it’s impossible to spread love across them equally, and it can get pretty irritating if your favorite never seems to get any love in the form of skins and other cosmetics. It’s especially grating when Overwatch 2 seems to favor a specific handful of characters with each event or collaboration. While support hero Kiriko, the face of this issue, wasn’t included in the Persona 5 skins, the collaboration still hasn’t gone over well with some fans who feel that heroes like Genji and Mercy are getting preferential treatment, or are disappointed that some seemingly obvious crossovers didn’t manifest.
drew junkrat skull and dva oracle earlier cause I’m hyped for the collab hehe #OverwatchFanart #Persona5 #Overwatch2 pic.twitter.com/6XOAOfgPgl
— Souda (@lemonsoudaa) September 15, 2025
Surprisingly, the most contentious skin in the Persona 5 event seems to be Genji as Ryuji. Genji makes a lot of sense for the collaboration, given that he’s one of Overwatch 2’s Japanese heroes, and his katana would make him a pretty natural fit for someone like Yusuke, who also uses a sword in the RPGs. Ryuji, however, is a bit of an odd pick. The track star is the tank of Persona 5’s team, and uses blunt melee weapons in fights, such as bats and pipes. When Genji wears the skin based on the Phantom Thief, his katana is replaced by Ryuji’s base lead pipe, which, yeah, I mean, that’s a melee weapon, I guess, but you don’t slash people with a pipe the same way Genji does when he uses his katana in his ultimate attack.
The choice is even more questionable considering that some fans feel Junkrat, the grenade-launching DPS hero and often forgotten member of the original roster, would have made a better fit, and had been speculating and hoping that he would get the Ryuji treatment. He has Ryuji’s blonde hair, the two have both suffered leg injuries that leave them with a distinct limp, and Ryuji is often a goofy comic relief character whose mannerisms would have worked well in a Junkrat highlight intro.
Seeing this. How did Junkrat not get that skin… https://t.co/iCDO1bOQ8f
— Sammie (@SamTheLucioFan) September 16, 2025
junkrats too ugly for collabs apparently even though this would be a literal 1-1 perfect fit for him. Lol. Lmfao. https://t.co/ARJAi03ghh
— jamie | COMMS CLOSED (@VentureFootJob) September 15, 2025
GENJI YOU GREEDY FUCK (love u overwatch cavalry not directed at you) YOU TAKE ALL THE GOOD SKINS AWAY FROM DESERVING PEOPLE IM SO MAD JUNKRAT RYUJI WAS RIGHT THERE BUT NO GIVE IT TO THE CYBORG NINJA DUDE https://t.co/Fv2B9g3FGf
— Nyx (Ramattra’s Version) (@GoddessNyxie_) September 15, 2025
Ryuji Genji while Junkrat is right there https://t.co/WQlWrguzY2 pic.twitter.com/liX21TefVc
— Acid Queen (@SleepyAcidQueen) September 15, 2025
both have leg injuries
both blonde
both frequently get made fun of by other characters
both energetic
both have matching highlight intros
both have yellow as their main color pic.twitter.com/pIA57DyBeS— charlie ︎ (@Neqtuen) September 15, 2025
While Junkrat isn’t included in the collaboration, another choice that has some Overwatch 2 fans up in arms is one for a hero who was featured, but was given what some deem an odd fit. D.Va, the mech-piloting tank, got a skin based on the student council president Makoto. It has some cool details, like her mech being based on Johanna, Makoto’s motorcycle-shaped Persona, but Persona 5 also has a character who would have fit D.Va’s gamer theme: Futaba. The support character in Persona 5 is a bit of a recluse. She’s extremely online and has to be dragged out of her bedroom to be social half the time, but she is always dropping gamer jokes and memes into casual conversation. D.Va pilots a mech because she was a pro gamer who uses her transferable skills to defend South Korea, so the comparisons are pretty apparent, especially because Futaba also pilots her own Persona like a mech. Still, some fans argue that adapting Johanna’s design for D.Va’s mech was an interesting creative choice.
yeah makoto! you remember the character in persona 5 who spoke in gamer lingo and spent most of her time in mementos in a mech like persona and had heavy ties to technology in most of the phantom thieves? right? https://t.co/tPb2pIZfgF
— * (@star_piIot) September 15, 2025
blizzard if they used more than 5 percent of their brain and actually played persona 5 https://t.co/En7AyTA9bL pic.twitter.com/2OJdKvSzKy
— Jonathan (@JonathanFess) September 16, 2025
this is a good choice when you look at the mecha
yall just dont have imagination https://t.co/HUExUNV2yz
— AUZZIE NYCC (@auzziejlee) September 15, 2025
The blizzard dev scrolling past your post https://t.co/NwVHVKmuAK pic.twitter.com/kzjiCO716i
— Frankiep423 (@frankiep423) September 16, 2025
If you go looking, you’ll find a lot of ideas fans had for the collaboration before Blizzard revealed the skins. Ashe could have leaned into the rose theme of the Ann skin, or Juno could have dressed up as Haru as a reference to their shared voice actor. Ultimately, when Blizzard teases something weeks before revealing it, fans just have more time to imagine the perfect collaboration in their heads and be disappointed in whatever follows, and that disappointment is only exacerbated when there are already perceptions of favoritism. R.I.P. Ryuji Junkrat, though. A real missed opportunity, that one.
