Mei-Ling Zhou

**Mei-Ling Zhou** is a foreigner from Overwatch. She fought Pyro from Team Fortress 2 in Riot Rumble.

## Description

**Mei** is a scientist who has taken the fight to preserve the environment into her own hands.

Though many blamed the planet's escalating, unexplained climate phenomena on the advent of new technologies, the rapidly growing omnic population, and drastically increased consumption of resources, the true cause remained unknown. To find a solution, Overwatch established a series of eco-Watchpoints at remote, critical locations worldwide.

Mei-Ling Zhou was a member of this multiyear initiative. A peerless climatologist, she had introduced cutting-edge innovations in the field of climate manipulation that protected at-risk areas in Asia and beyond. She was assigned to the program's monitoring station at Watchpoint: Antarctica when disaster struck: a sudden, catastrophic polar storm battered the installation and cut it off from the outside world, leaving the facility damaged and the scientists stranded. As their supplies dwindled, they entered cryostasis in a last-ditch effort to survive until a rescue attempt could be made.

But that rescue never came. It was years later when the team's cryogenics chamber was finally discovered. Mei, still in hibernation, was the only survivor. The world Mei awoke to had gone through considerable changes: Overwatch was no more, the serious climate issues had worsened, and none of the eco-Watchpoints were in operation. Any clues that they had uncovered were lost.

Mei has decided to continue her work on her own. Equipped with a portable version of her climate-manipulation technology, she travels around the world, hoping to re-establish the eco-network and track down the causes of the threats to the planet's ecosystem.

## Quotes

* I know, Snowball. This won't be easy but... everyone's counting on us.
* WHAT?! HOW THIS THIS HAPPEN?!
* SNWOBALL, QUICK! Before anything valuable is lost!
* Snowball, use Blizzard to extinquish the flames, hurry!
* So YOU'RE responsible for this?!
* "I hate bullies like you!"
* I need to gain some distance...
* Reflect...? Then try this!
* Approach me if you dare.
* HEY! No fair!
* "Ah, all healed up!"- Huh...?
* Out of ammo...? NOW'S OUR CHANCE!
* GOT YOU! Now you're finished!
* AN ATOMIZING RAYGUN?!
* S-STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!

## Trivia

* Mei's placeholder name during development was **Frostbite**. Early versions of the character were an explorer outfitted with climbing gear and bounty hunter who used an ice gun to freeze captured bounties in cryostasis.
* Earlier ideas for ice-based characters were included in an early pitch for the game: Frost, a man with a white fur-lined jacket and a visored helmet, envisioned as using an Ice Axe and abilities named Ice Patch and Ice Wall; another yeti-themed character named Yetzi was envisioned as having an Ice Storm ability.
* Early concepts for Mei were revised as they were too close to Zarya.
* The name Mei-Ling translates to "beautiful" and "spirit" in Chinese, and thus together "beautiful spirit".
* "Mei-Ling" is Mei's actual given name, not "Mei"; there is no middle name convention in traditional Chinese names. (The layout of 周美灵 in English is 'Zhou, Mei-Ling'.) One can imagine her saying, "Hi, I'm Mei-Ling, but you can just call me Mei!"
* One of her sprays reveals her drone's name to be Snowball.
* Mei's biological age, 31, does not include her time spent in cryostasis. Her chronological age is roughly 40.
* Mei's favourite drink is tea (also with boba [the tapioca pearls in bubble tea]).
* Mei is the ninth playable *Overwatch* character in *Heroes of the Storm*. She is also a purchasable announcer. Additionally, an image of Mei appears on the shoulderpad of Rexxar when using his Fire Raider skin.
* From a development standpoint, Mei is more of a "normal" hero, designed to show that anyone can rise to be a hero. Michael Chu has joked that her 'superpower' is being optimistic in the face of overwhelming odds.
* Mei has became a symbol of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. She was chosen ironically, being a Blizzard character, following the suspension and penalization of a Hearthstone e-Sports player blitzchung (Wai Chung Ng), after he publicly advocated for the Free Hong Kong movement. Fans of Blizzard and Overwatch have produced numerous images of Mei depicting her protesting the Hong Kong government or advocating for human rights, in the hopes that the Chinese version of *Overwatch* would be banned from the market.

### XVX

* She's the 6th female combatant in Riot Rumble.
* She the 3rd Riot Rumble character to die.