Overwatch 2 has revealed new sprays coming to the game that some fans online have been speculating are AI-generated. These sprays feature new character Wuyang playing competitive Overwatch at his computer, and Venture and Juno posing back-to-back. Both sprays reference the Overwatch Esports organization, with its logo included on the heroes’ clothes and computer. After they were revealed, some fans started accusing Blizzard of using generative AI in Overwatch 2 to create these sprays, as well as explaining which details about the sprays they felt gave them away as the product of AI. Well, we asked Blizzard if this is the case, and the company says that both sprays were made by a human artist.
Overwatch is ABSOLUTELY using AI, LOOK AT THE EYES pic.twitter.com/Wsl7Q95qSN
— Juno 🍐 COMMISSIONS OPEN (2/2) (@DewEnjoyer) September 17, 2025
“The sprays referenced are artist-made,” a Blizzard spokesperson said in a statement to Kotaku.
When these accusations started flying around social media in places like X and TikTok, some Overwatch haters were more than willing to jump on the bandwagon, but several others argued that calling things out as AI art based on small nitpicks is only detrimental to the cause of protesting AI slop in favor of supporting artists, because you might be mistaken, distort others’ perception of what is and isn’t AI-generated, and then the artists whose work is mischaracterized as AI are left with that controversy on their public record. Though yes, AI art is a plague on this planet and we should absolutely speak out against companies using it instead of hiring real artists, firing the accusation from the hip ultimately risks throwing the very artists you claim to be advocating for under the bus. Now, a Blizzard artist or maybe a contractor has seen people assume their work isn’t their own, that it isn’t even the work of a human being, and is instead the product of an algorithm scraping other artists’ portfolios.
I sympathize with the fear that your favorite thing might become lost to the slop machine. Overwatch 2 is one of my favorite games, and I play it just about every day, largely because I love the work Blizzard’s creative team has put into bringing these characters to life. But vigilance shouldn’t turn these conversations into witch hunts where the artists whose work we want to support takes collateral damage.
