I woke up on April 22, 2025, ready to queue support and pretend I was helping my team, and instead got hit by a leak that made me question my entire mech-loving existence. Overwatch 2 was about to launch its Gundam Wing collaboration on April 29, and the teaser had already confirmed Mercy as one of the chosen heroes. Naturally, the rest of us started speculating like it was a fantasy football draft: Pharah, Echo, Bastion, maybe even D.Va. Then leaker wiki_ow dropped a list on X, and the community collectively screamed into their headsets. According to the leak, only four heroes were getting Gundam skins: Mercy, Ramattra, Soldier 76, and Reaper. Not Pharah. Not Echo. Not D.Va. I had to check if my monitor was broken. It was not. The leak was real, or at least real enough to ruin my afternoon. 😤
The Leaked Lineup: Four Heroes, Zero Flying Robots
Look, I love Mercy. She's the reason I can pretend I have good positioning while I panic-fly to a Reinhardt who is three walls away. But when the Gundam Wing collab was announced, my brain immediately went to the flying heroes. Gundam is about mobile suits, jetpacks, beam sabers, and dramatic poses. Pharah literally shoots rockets from the sky. Echo is a robot. D.Va is a mech pilot. This should have been a layup. Instead, we got a support, a tank, and two DPS who mostly run on the ground. It's like ordering a pizza and getting a salad. A delicious salad, maybe, but still not pizza. 🍕🚫
Here's the leaked lineup, plus my completely unbiased, very mature reactions:
| Hero | Getting a Gundam skin? | My reaction | Possible Gundam Wing vibe |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mercy | Yes | "Of course she is. Queen of collabs." | Wing Zero, angelic but armed |
| Ramattra | Yes | "Finally, a tank with main character energy." | Epyon, angry and dramatic |
| Soldier 76 | Yes | "Dad in a mech. Sure." | Heavyarms, lots of bullets |
| Reaper | Yes | "Deathscythe. It writes itself." | Deathscythe, obviously |
| Pharah | No | "CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR." | Tallgeese, the perfect fit |
| Echo | No | "Again? AGAIN?" | Wing Gundam, robotception |
| D.Va | No | "Missed opportunity of the century." | Any mech, really. Any. |
The fan reactions were exactly what you'd expect. One player wrote, "Mercy sneaking her way in over Echo or Pharah is criminal behavior." Another commented, "Missed opportunity to include all flying heroes. Echo, Pharah and D.va." And my personal favorite: "Echo getting sideswiped again, she had two perfect opportunities to get a collab skin for Transformers and now Gundam, but somehow Mercy gets one?" I felt that in my soul. Echo players have been through enough. They don't need another L. 💀
Pharah Fans, I Stand With You
The most confusing part is that Pharah already has a skin that looks like it was ripped straight from a Gundam hangar. Her Overwatch 1 launch skin, Mechaqueen, is basically a Gundam with a rocket launcher. If you told me it was a rejected Gundam Wing design, I would believe you. So when the collab was announced and Pharah wasn't in the leaked lineup, it felt like Blizzard forgot its own history. I'm not saying I burned my Pharah figurine. I'm just saying it's in a drawer now, thinking about what it did. 🔥
Ramattra fans, on the other hand, were eating well. The Null Sector tank getting a Gundam skin is a fun surprise. I can already hear him delivering a dramatic monologue about oppression while looking like a giant red mech. That's cinema. Soldier 76 and Reaper are fine choices too. Soldier gets to be the grumpy veteran with a beam rifle, and Reaper gets to be the edgy Deathscythe pilot who listens to Linkin Park in his cockpit. Good for them. 🤖
Why This Leak Still Haunts Me In 2026
It's 2026 now, and I still think about this leaked lineup when I'm waiting in spawn. Overwatch 2 has continued its crossover era, but the Gundam Wing collab remains a beautiful, frustrating what-if. Every time a Pharah rocket-boosts over my head, I hear the ghost of a Tallgeese skin that never was. Every time Echo duplicates someone, I wonder if she's secretly copying a Gundam that got cancelled. Every time D.Va throws her mech at the enemy team, I whisper, "That could have been a Gundam." 😭
Of course, we have to remember the golden rule of leaks: until Blizzard officially announces the skins, take it with a grain of salt. A very large, mech-sized grain of salt. The leaker could be wrong. The lineup could change. Maybe Pharah will swoop in at the last second like a heroic ace pilot. But if the leak is accurate, then Mercy, Ramattra, Soldier 76, and Reaper are the chosen four. And I will be there, wallet open, crying in English, because I am part of the problem. 💸
So here's my 2026 verdict: the Gundam Wing collab leak gave us some cool picks, but it also gave us a giant robot-sized hole in our hearts where Pharah, Echo, and D.Va should have been. If Blizzard wants to make it right, I have one suggestion. Just give every flying hero a Gundam skin. All of them. Even the ones that don't fly. Especially the ones that don't fly. I don't make the rules. I just complain about them on the internet. 🚀
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