Ask any Genji or D.va player, and they'll tell you that one of their biggest enemies in Overwatch is Mei, the cold, ice-blasting scientist. She's deceptively effective in battle, and both an offensive and defensive threat. Though she frustrates many with her ability to freeze all in her wake and her insane survivability, she's also a highly charming and likeable character.
No-one in Overwatch lore displays such an air of cheeriness and optimism as Mei, despite her somewhat troubled past. At her core, she has both a warm and kind personality, with a desire to make the world a better place - though you wouldn't know it with the icy destruction she can unleash on enemy teams. With that said, let's chill out and take a close look at some interesting facts about her.
10 "Mei" Was Not Her Original Name
In perhaps a more fitting, but possibly more cheesy creative decision, the placeholder name for Mei was "Frostbite," though this didn't make it past the conceptual level. This is probably for the best though, considering how cartoony and on-the-nose this name would have been.
While the name Mei seems rather basic, her full name, Mei-Ling, translates to "beautiful spirit" in Chinese. This seems pretty appropriate given her happy-go-lucky nature and cheerful demeanor, along with her desire to do good in the world.
9 A Renegade Climatologist
Mei's prominent ice theme is significant in terms of her lore and her career as a climatologist and environmental scientist. She began her work with a group as part of a project to analyze and temper the drastic changes in climate. This was said to be caused by the drastic increase in consumption, new technologies, and the rise of the Omnic.
However, following a fatal accident involving her colleagues, she's becomes determined and inspired to continue their work and go off on her own. She now travels the world, wielding a portable version of her climate-manipulation tech in a quest to rebuild the destroyed eco-network and help stabilize the ecosystem.
8 Was Cryogenically Frozen For A Decade
The reason for Mei's determination to make a positive impact on the environment has its roots with a deadly accident at Watchpoint: Antarctica, a monitoring station for climatologists. It's also the reason for her "real age" being listed as 40, despite her biological age being 31.
During their experiments one day, a catastrophic winter storm destroyed the team's radio tower, cutting off communication and leaving Mei and her peers stranded. After going through their supplies, they eventually resorted to entering cryostasis to preserve themselves until rescue arrived. However, no rescue came, and Mei awoke a whopping 9 years later to find her colleges deceased and her the only survivor. Finding a call from Winston to join the ranks of Overwatch, she set her sights on joining forces and sharing the data she's gathered.
7 Modeled Off Various Fictional Characters
Mei isn't just some random glasses-sporting climatologist Blizzard pulled out of thin air. As it turns out, much thought and influence went into her design from a number of areas. Perhaps the biggest --but most obscure-- of these references is Yomiko Readman from the anime Read or Die, particularly when it comes to her appearance and cheery demeanor.
Though, Mei's influences also partly come from Zooey Deschanel's Jess from New Girl and Ariel Winter's portrayal of Alex Dunphy in Modern Family. Blizzard also drew on some female roles from modern Disney films, including Princess Giselle from Enchanted and Rapunzel from Tangled.
6 Heroes Of The Storm Cameo
There's a number of subtle, and not-so-subtle crossovers between Overwatch and another Blizzard multiplayer hit, Heroes of the Storm; specifically with D.va, Genji, Junkrat, and a few others playable heroes. There's a bit of a cameo for our favorite Climatologist as well, in the form of Rexxar's Raider Fire skin.
Mei can be seen in her own fire-themed skin (specifically sporting a firefighter outfit) on the left shoulder of Rexxar's armor. It seems like a peculiar choice both in terms of the color scheme and the characteristics of both heroes --Rexxar seems to resemble Reinhart far more than Mei-- but there you have it...
5 Carrying The "Blizzard" Tradition
It seems that there is more rhyme to the reasoning of Mei's ice abilities than even many of her fans may realize. Sure, there's the obvious connection to Mei's "Blizzard" Ultimate coinciding with the name of the developers itself, but the significance goes beyond this.
Blizzard actually has an ongoing theme in which at least one character featured in their games comes with an ability called "Blizzard." It thus seems fitting that the hero with such a prominent ice theme would carry the torch of this tradition.
4 Well-Versed In Chinese Poetry
You might have heard Mei start speaking some undecipherable bit of dialogue in Chinese during the Volskaya Industries and Nepal maps. The line can be translated to "as if the vernal breeze had come back overnight, adorning thousands of pear trees with blossoms white."
Even if you speak the language, you may be wondering just what this seemingly random phrase is in reference to. As it turns out, Mei seems to know her Tang Dynasty-era poetry. The line is an excerpt from a poem 1300 years old by the Chinese poet Cen Shen. Its theme of the earth's revitalization and blossoming is certainly in accordance with Mei's nature.
3 Various Changes In Concept
Mei is perhaps one of the Overwatch heroes that has seen the most alterations in the pre-production phase of the game. For starters, she was originally somewhat modeled off a character of the canceled game, Project Titan, named Frost: a strange cyborg sporting a Mei-style coat along with an ice axe and Ice Wall ability.
On top of this, some of the conceptual designs for the original Mei included a taller, more slender climber, as well as a Boba Fett-looking bounty hunter wielding a freezing rifle.
2 Was Able To Exploit An Ice Wall Glitch
While it didn't last too long once the Blizzard developers were on the case, for a time in early 2017, some particularly savvy Mei players discovered a glitch with her, fittingly on her home turf of Ecopoint Antarctica. In this 3 vs 3 map, a Mei player simply needed to lift themselves upwards by deploying their Ice Wall at the corner of the spawn room directly beneath one of the staircases.
This exploit would push Mei, in addition to her teammates that stand on the wall, up to an otherwise inaccessible 2nd floor room. From there, the team could pick off enemy targets while they themselves were impervious. Naturally, Blizzard quickly scrambled to patch up this glitch soon after it was discovered. It seems that Mei isn't so wholesome and innocent after all!
1 A Chinese Goddess And Apollo 11 Reference Rolled Into One
One of the prettier Overwatch skins comes in the form of Mei's "Luna and Chang'e" Year of the Rooster skin - which included the infamous case of fans arguing over Mei's weight thanks to the wardrobe slimming her waist. Another key trait of this skin, however, is her unique line of dialogue with it, "those astronauts never found me!"
This seemingly random reference is actually a nod to the Apollo 11 astronauts, who had a cheeky back and forth with the Houston command center regarding the search for Chang'e. Chang'e happens to be the Chinese goddess of the moon, who has a large rabbit companion. This explains why one of the astronauts says "we'll keep our eyes out for the bunny girl." It also explains why Mei's robot companion Snowball seems to be randomly sporting bunny ears as part of this skin.