The early concept for the characters was "Miner", strictly defined as someone that could dig underground and as a result required a huge drill. Senior concept artist Kejun Wang went through multiple ideas and weapon combinations, including some that involved an exosuit and others that used sound-based drills. Narrative designer Miranda Moyer suggested a swashbucklingarcheologist, an idea the development team quickly took a liking to and built around, combining several elements of Wang's early concepts to create "a daring explorer with a big drill". Particularly, a longer coat and a heavy backpack were added as they felt these elements were unique to Venture's identity, but also helped make the character's silhouette more distinct.[1]
The drill required additional work on its own, as when attempting to create rough models of the design to test it in a 3D environment, they found the concepts did not translate well for a first person perspective. As a result, they refined it to have a more conical shape they felt would be immediately recognizable during gameplay, while the additional moving parts were mapped out by collaborating with other artists. Venture's means of holding it was meant to resemble someone riding a motorcycle. They felt this aesthetic worked well due to how loud the weapon was, and leaned more into it by adding flame decals to the side.[1]
They chose to make Venture non-binary with they/them pronouns, something the character's gameplay designer Jessie Yang, themselves non-binary, described as long over. To better understand how to approach the concept, Yang encouraged another non-binary developer at Blizzard to give a quick presentation, illustrating that such characters often had no set archetype.[3][4] Narrative designer Miranda Moyer chose to focus on developing the character's personality as an archeologist in Overwatch's setting, wanting them to be someone "daring, passionate, and unabashedly themselves". During this process, other LGBTQ developers at the company were also asked for their input, while according to Moyer a queer fashion company was consulted to try and ensure the character would be well received by the public.[1]
Appearances
Venture, real name Sloan Cameron, is a Mexican-Canadianarchaeologist from Nova Scotia, Canada,[5] and a member of the archaeological research group known as the Wayfinder Society. They are the first non-binary character in Overwatch. They are equipped with a futuristic drill which they use as a weapon, a Smart Excavator, which fires a seismic projectile that bursts after a short distance. With the excavator, they can Drill Dash to spring towards the direction they are facing, damaging opponents. They can also Burrow underground for short distances, remaining invulnerable while underground, and jumping out to do damage to foes above them. They can use their Drill Dash ability while Burrow is active, damaging enemies and knocking them into the air. Passively, using their abilities gains temporary shields through their Explorer's Resolve, and does more melee damage with quick attacks though their Clobber skill. Their ultimate ability is a Tectonic Shock that sends out shock waves through the ground to heavily damage enemies.[6][7][8]
Venture was revealed at Blizzcon 2023, and later made a playable character as part of the April 2024 Season 10 patch, being playable during an open test period in the prior month.[9]
Venture's debut was well received, particularly by players that appreciated additional representation in the game's roster.[10] Meanwhile, Kotaku's Kenneth Shepard commented how players had come to regard Venture's chipped tooth in their concept art coupled with their archeologist background as a sign the character ate rocks, and drew significant fan art around this concept as a meme.[11] In June 2024, fans of the character purchased televised screen space in Times Square, New York City to showcase memes and their affection towards the character.[12]
In an article examining Overwatch's handling of LGBTQ representation, Jade King of The Gamer described Venture and fellow character Lifeweaver as a step in the right direction for Blizzard's representation of queer characters in the game, described past efforts as "all bark and no bite". By comparison, they appreciated that Venture was direct and proud of their identity. King further stated that while the character was androgynous in appearance, they were also "still packed with personality from their clothes to their facial expressions", illustrating an ideal of being who one wanted to be.[13]
Journalist Bonnie Qu in an article for eSports group Team Liquid's website discussed Venture in the scope of other non-binary characters that were recently introduced in competitive gaming. In this manner, they observed how Venture compared to characters from other games such as Valorant's Clove or Rainbow Six Siege's Sens, and how all the characters in question varied from one another as developers tried to define what represented a non-binary identity visually. They further felt that properly illustrating a non-binary identity relied less on stereotyping but on diversity in character design, and that "when done right" bad faith arguments against such would often sound ridiculous, citing in Venture's case how some critics could not actually decide what gender to misgender the character as.[4]
However, media outlets observed Venture seemed to receive little additional support from the developers in the form of in-game cosmetics beyond simple skins or additional lore content upon released, elements that every previous character in Overwatch had received.[14] As time went on, this lack of support became more noticeable, with Shepard stating the fandom seemed to be providing more support than Blizzard Entertainment themselves.[12] Though later skins were eventually released, they were in a diminished capacity compared to the rest of the game's cast, and despite the promise of additional content by the developers accusations arose towards Blizzard of "playing favorites" by favoring more popular members of the roster, particularly East Asian-themed characters.[15][16]
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