As a Nigerian, it's nice to see a character in a AAA game of the year that is directly inspired by my tribe (the Yoruba tribe in Nigeria). I was going to post my thoughts initially, but then I decided to hear everyone else's thoughts first. I'll update this OP later with what I have in mind, but I'm curious as to a few things. I'm wondering if I only noticed certain things because I'm Nigerian.

1. Did you know the character Orisa was inspired by anything from Nigeria at all?

2. Did you know that her creator (according to the game's story) Efi Oladele bears a Nigerian name?

3. Do you know that Numbani is a ficitonal African nation, and not a real one?

4. Do you find the character interesting in anyway, regardless of whether or not you knew about/cared about the cultural inspiration?

5. Any Overwatch player here just hearing about this for the first time? If so, here's a lil info https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/blog/20580087

EDIT: So here are my thoughts about the character.

First of all, I don't know what their decision making process was like, but I'm kinda happy that when they decided to have an African character, they specifically picked Nigeria. Nigeria gets a lot of exaggerated horrible representation in international media, so it's good to see a regular good, geeky representation for a change. As a kid, most of what I knew about other countries was what I saw in cartoons, games and movies, after all.

As for the actual design of the character, they really didn't do much with the Nigerian inspiration. They gave her Nigeria's colors (green) and she's wearing a mask, but the mask doesn't look Nigerian, and the embelishments and patterns on her armor don't look Nigerian at all. They could have done so much more with that. I guess it can still be fixed with alternate costumes. I've seen all her current costumes here and they look even less Nigerian inspired than the default costume, but man, I love the design of the two beetle costumes she has! 

I literally cringed when I heard them pronounce Orisa in the trailer. It should have been pronounced "Orisha". Orisa is a Yoruba word for deity. The Yoruba letter is an S with a dot beneath it, which is pronounced like "sh" in English. Her creator's name is weird too. "Oladele" is a Yoruba surname, but "Efi" isn't a Yoruba name. It's probably from the Delta area of Nigeria. Without any explicit backstory saying her parents were an inter-tribal couple, that name is almost as unusual as seeing Benedict Mohammed.

So I feel like the developers hearts are in the right place, and they keep designing a vast range of characters inspired by vastly different cultures, but I also feel like they could have done proper research with the resources available to them. With the kind of reach and popularity Overwatch has, there are already lots of YouTube videos with people saying "Oh ree sah" instead of "Oh ree sha". I fear it may make the wrong pronunciation become mainstream. Here's an article I wrote about a similar topic. I wrote that after seeing the Marvel cinematic universe interpretation of Black Panther in the Civil War movie.

It's not like it's impossible to design futuristic stuff that still looks legitimately African. It's just that they would have needed to consult an African artist or someone who understands African art patterns to pull it off. This graphic novel does it perfectly. It's a space opera, but literally everything in it is inspired by African art and sculpture. It's a step in the right direction anyway. Hopefully, when my games come out, I'll show the right way to do it. I don't like complaining or ranting then doing nothing about whatever I'm bothered about.

1. Yes (Big Hero 6 err... 24!)
2. Yes since she was teased it was mentioned
3. Yes (I actually got Floor is Lava achievement on this map)
4. I think culture makes the Overwatch characters more interesting

1. I don't know any Overwatch character.

2. Is that any different from a Kenyan name? Just curious.

3. Of course - I think everyone would recognise a fake country.

4. I don't play MOBAs.

Overwatch is an AAA game? Shiver me timbers, i didnt know that!

Um the character doesn't look Nigerian to me...

Just looks like aanother generic character from one of the most visually generic games I have ever played. 

I found this concept art though. Much better.

this HTML class. Value is http://www.criticalh

Bruhh when u showing gameplay of your new game

Yes. Kenya is in East Africa while Nigeria is in West Africa. It's similar to asking whether a Turkish name is different from a German name, as those countries are in Eastern and Western Europe respectively.

When you consider the marketing budget (look at those animated shorts!), the dedicated servers, the game of the year status, the free DLC.....what's your definition of AAA anyway?

Your link doesn't work

I hope to show footage by the end of March. The basic gameplay has been working since January, and I've been making incremental improvements since, but the graphics aren't ready. The animations are stiill being done, and some of the 3D models for some of the enemies aren't ready yet. I could show gameplay with a bunch of cubes and spheres moving around as placeholders, but I know how gamers are with judging a game initally by the graphics they see

Turkish and German names are fairly different though. Not sure anyone of us would be able to differentiate between African names.

Well that is racists.

Might as well come out and say they all look alike while your at it.

That's because you're more familiar with European names, so it's easier for you to differentiate between them. You're probably not as familiar with Africa, which makes it harder to tell the differences.