Overwatch esports has many fans, but the devs felt that some special mention should go towards one fan in particular, a woman by the name of Weiwei. At 27, Weiwei is the youngest doctor who was part of the Shaanxi Province team dispatched to Wuhan to battle the COVID-19 outbreak.
She previously had aspirations to join the military academy, but a congenital eye defect halted her attempt at service. Instead, she succeeded in applying for undergraduate and master programs in clinical medicine at Jilin University, which both require high scores to enroll. After graduating Jilin University in 2019, she became a cardiologist at Xi’an Second Affiliated Hospital in her father’s hometown of Shaanxi. During her time at the cardiology ward, which she was on-call 24 hours a day, she would pass the time by watching Overwatch League matches and quickly became a fan of the Chengdu Hunters. She herself is an avid Overwatch player, playing mainly as Mercy.
Weiwei actively enrolled to be part of the team headed to Wuhan, and she often found comfort in Overwatch, particularly drawing inspiration from the Honor and Glory animated short and, of course, Mercy’s catchphrase “Heroes never die.” She decorated her hazmat suit with the phrase, and one of her colleagues had even drawn angel wings on its back. On the day of her arrival to Wuhan, she made a post on Weibo that read, “The world could always use more heroes. I’m finally off to the frontline to destroy the virus after my 600+ hours on Angela.” The post received hundreds of reposts and comments and thousands of likes — comments that kept Weiwei’s spirits up while at Wuhan.
On March 22nd, she was able to leave Wuhan after the area started taking a turn for the better, but not before being able to visit the city the day before and take in its landmarks like the Yellow Crane Tower. In every sense, she is a true hero, and heroes deserve merit, such as the post outlining her story as well as a video call with some members of the Chengdu Hunters during her time in Wuhan.
