One of the components that has helped make Overwatch an enormous hit in 2016 is the fact that each member of its roster is very distinctive, each possessing their own set of skills and specialized weaponry. Now, the popular YouTube series Man at Arms: Reforged has taken on the challenge of crafting one character’s signature sword.
While it’s broadly accurate to call Overwatch a first-person shooter, many characters don’t use guns at all. Genji, the game’s resident cyborg ninja, pairs a sword with a set of throwing stars to fulfil his role as a damage-dealing offense hero.
Genji’s primary weapon is an odachi that he calls Ryu-ichimonji. According to Overwatch lore, the character has never allowed anyone else to examine or repair the blade — but that didn’t stop the Man at Arms team from taking a stab at creating their own version.
The challenge of this particular build is bringing together its more traditional elements with the glowing green strip that runs the length of the blade. Genji is a member of a centuries-old ninja clan who is turned into a cyborg after a near-fatal fight, so the balance of old and new is a prominent motif in his character design and his weapon of choice.
Traditional blacksmithing processes are combined with more modern techniques to make sure that the sword is as accurate as possible. After the blade itself has been forged, it’s outfitted with LEDs under a plexiglass diffuser for an effect that’s very close to its appearance in-game.
This isn’t the first time that the Man at Arms crew have attempted to recreate a weapon from a popular video game. Previously, the team has made Poppy’s Hammer from League of Legends, the trench club from Battlefield 1, and Pyramid Head’s great knife from Silent Hill 2, among many other projects inspired by the world of gaming.
