Same Face Syndrome is curable

Anran is an elder sister, a master of the flame, and a new Overwatch recruit. She also has the same face as several other Overwatch characters — or, rather, had the same face. Blizzard Entertainment announced in February that the fiery new character would be added as a playable character as part of a so-called "new, story-driven era" for the game. But it's not the first time Overwatch players have seen Anran. She played a major part in another character's trailer, which debuted in 2025 — her brother, Wuyang. Both Wuyang and Anran get invited to join the Overwatch organization, coins slipped under their bedroom doors. Though it was only Wuyang joining in 2025, the animated short implied that Anran would eventually be added to the game, too. It set expectations for what Anran would look like in Overwatch itself.

But Anran's reveal in 2026 let down Overwatch players. Not only did she not look like the woman from the trailer, she looked like a bunch of other Overwatch heroes. It's something games like Overwatch, Marvel Rivals, and League of Legends are infamous for. Before Anran, Blizzard was criticized for its face designs of Kiriko; she looked a lot like D.Va, who coincidentally, looks a lot like Anran. Illustrator Wallace Pires posted a video demonstrating the phenomena on Twitter. Pires removed Anran's hair and face markers and overlaid that of other Overwatch characters (and a surprise Marvel Rivals character, Galacta).

https://t.co/a4ybqYbCca pic.twitter.com/YLhaljEVDI

— Wallace Pires (@h_wallacepires) February 6, 2026

Look, I haven't played Overwatch in quite a while, but I don’t think I’d otherwise have noticed, posted individually, that they had the wrong faces. (Maybe Torbjörn.) Art and animation circles call this Same Face Syndrome. Disney is one of the egregious perpetrators of Same Face Syndrome. As entertainment journalist Petrana Radulovic wrote in 2023: "You know that face — pleasantly round, with rosy cheeks, a dainty button nose, ginormous long-lashed eyes, and pale pink lips with a perfect cupid’s bow." It's a model Disney's rarely strayed from for more than a decade.

Overwatch is just one offender in the video game world. Genshin Impact, League of Legends, and Marvel Rivals have all come down with Same Face Syndrome. It's not a new thing; it's plagued video games for decades. "This is definitely part and parcel of a much larger trend in how women are depicted in games," Dr. Amanda Cote, associate professor of media and information at Michigan State University, told Mothership. Cote researches video game culture and communities, "often through the lens of questions of inclusion or exclusion," she said. She pointed to how a participant in one of her research studies described the landscape of women in video games: "an indistinguishable pile of boobs and ribbon."