Genji is one of the most agile characters of Overwatch. This, however, often poses significant challenges for the developers.
In the development of Overwatch, things do not always go as the developers initially intended. In a rather entertaining video on YouTube, Jeff Kaplan and Geoff Goodman discuss various phases of development and share some behind-the-scenes insights.
When asked about the things he regrets most in the game, Goodman quickly responds with an answer: Genji’s double jump.
“I believe Genji’s double jump is the ability in the game that I regret the most. That one thing makes him so hard to balance, because he is simply everywhere all the time. You want to always be behind him, being in the air – it’s practically like he’s flying all the time. That’s what makes him so nimble and great, but at the same time, it gives us huge headaches. What seemed totally harmless at first turned out to be problematic.”
Genji often receives changes
Genji is one of the candidates that receives a small adjustment in almost every second patch. The duration of his ultimate ability has already been reduced, the speed of his sword strikes increased, the delay after climbing a wall removed, and so on. However, the biggest change was that he could no longer reset his double jump by climbing a wall. Good Genji players could thus remain in the air permanently, as they (like Spiderman) bounced from wall to wall without ever touching the ground.
Could you even imagine a Genji without a double jump? Or is that an integral part of the cyborg ninja, even if it defies all laws of physics?
