D.Va

Development and design

D.Va was first announced in October 2015; along with Genji and Mei, she was one of the last heroes introduced into Overwatch prior to its official release. Voice actress Charlet Chung provides both the English voice for D.Va, as well as her Korean dialogue. D.Va is designed as a tank character who uses a pink exoskeletal mech suit to battle. Mobile for a tank character, D.Va was also designed as "skirmisher."

Soon after the game's release, D.Va was noted for having a low damage output; the game's principal designer, Geoff Goodman confirmed that "D.Va's damage is definitely on the lower side, much like Winston's. They are this way for a similar reason: They are both very mobile and hard to kill." D.Va was also noted to take more damage than other tank characters when facing multiple opponents in the game due to her lack of a shield. Goodman attributed this along with her low damage output to the character balancing developed into Overwatch developers, stating, "every character in the game has strengths and weaknesses, it's part of what makes the teamplay work well." Goodman revealed that early in her development, D.Va was able to deal more damage, but that this damage output was lowered because "the way that played out is that she would fly into someone's face, destroy them, and fly away. There was little that person could do because [of] her mobility." Despite agreeing with feedback calling D.Va underpowered, Goodman expressed that improvements to the character "are unlikely to take the shape of increasing her damage output significantly," adding that "the goal is that she should be a viable aggressive initiation tank, much like Winston can be." The discussion of buffing D.Va came at the same time as a discussion on nerfing the character McCree, who had been noted to eliminate tank characters too quickly; game director Jeff Kaplan explained that D.Va buffs would take longer to develop and implement. Kaplan did however detail that the development team would be exploring improvements to her damage output and survivability, although would only "probably pick one direction or the other." Eventually, her ultimate ability was buffed, with the cost and explosion delay being reduced, in addition to the removal of the possibility for the activating player to be killed by their own ultimate ability. Her "Defense Matrix" ability was also changed to be toggled on and off at will with a resource meter, rather than being a single-use ability with a cooldown.

Gameplay

D.Va possesses a tank role in Overwatch; she is suited in her mech which is equipped with twin Fusion Cannons that do not need reloading. The Fusion Cannons deal substantial damage at close range, but consequentially slow her mobility. D.Va also comes equipped with Boosters and a Defense Matrix; the Boosters quickly move her in the direction that the player's reticle is facing, potentially allowing for short periods of flight, and additionally lightly damages enemies that come in contact with her while boosting. D.Va's Defense Matrix absorbs incoming damage heading toward her. Once her mech suit runs out of hitpoints (HP), D.Va ejects out of it, equipped with only a Light Gun. Though more vulnerable while outside the mech, she is a considerably smaller and more manueverable target in this state. D.Va can also eject out of her mech suit as part of her "Self Destruct" ultimate ability, which causes her mech suit to explode and deal massive area of effect damage shortly after ejection. Once the mech explodes, D.Va can use her second ultimate ability, "Call Mech", which simply allows her to resuit into her mech. This can be done immediately after using the "Self Destruct" ability, but otherwise has a cooldown period that can be sped up by damaging opponents while on foot.

Overwatch

In Overwatch lore, D.Va—the youngest playable character—is a 19-year old former professional gamer, known for becoming the No. 1 ranked StarCraft II player in the world at age 16, and maintaining an undefeated record prior to her retirement from gaming in order to defend her homeland. During the in-universe Omnic Crisis event, an omnic monster rose from the East China Sea, destroying coastal cities including those in South Korea and its neighbors. The South Korean government developed the Mobile Exo-Force of the Korean Army (MEKA), a mobile armored drone unit to combat the omnic monster, although each battle resulted in a stalemate. The omnic continued to adapt to the MEKA's drone networks, turning them against the Koreans. The South Korean government struggled with finding pilots for new mechs, eventually turned to the country's professional gamers, thought to have necessary reflexes and instincts to effectively operate the mech suits' advanced weaponry. Based in Busan, D.Va was one of the pro gamers drafted by South Korea's government. Known for being fearless in combat against the omnics, she would develop a global following as she began live streaming her combat encounters.

Reception

D.Va has been positively received by the game's community. Kotaku reported that the game's fan base created a meme of the character; the meme, dubbed "Gremlin D.Va" often features chibi-like fan art of the character, in which D.Va is portrayed as a "cherubic" version of herself indulging in gamer stereotypes, such as eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew. An August 2016 Overwatch patch included a new emote for D.Va in which she sits in her mech playing a shoot 'em up game while eating potato chips and drinking an energy drink, alluding to the Gremlin D.Va meme. Lead hero designer Geoff Goodman stated, "we love Gremlin D.Va," when speaking on Blizzard's favorite fan interpretation of characters.

In terms of critical reception, Tech Insider's Steve Kovach called D.Va his favorite character. Kotaku's Kirk Hamilton positively received the buff she received in July 2016, writing that it "transformed her into the high-flying terror I’ve always wanted her to be."

In South Korea, D.Va has been used as a representative of the National D.Va Association, a group of South Korean Overwatch players that support women and LGBTQ rights, formed to protest against former South Korean President Park Geun Hye. They chose D.Va to represent them, both due to her South Korean nationality, as well as in light of cheating accusations laid against a teenage female Overwatch player that Blizzard cleared. With D.Va highlighting that females can be equally good at video games as males, due to her in-universe professional eSports player status, the group uses both images of D.Va and her pink bunny logo as part of their demonstration material. Some of this demonstration material appeared during international coverage of the 2017 Women's March in January 2017.