Lucie Pohl, the voice of Overwatch’s Mercy, tells us why she loves the game and its diversity

Voice actor Lucie Pohl, by her own admission, was wrong about Overwatch, the hit video game with a rabid fanbase thanks to its charming characters. 

If you’ve played the game, you probably are familiar with Mercy, a flying doctor who is good for goodness sake. Pohl voiced Mercy and she, along with the rest of Overwatch’s cast, were dubbed the “Beatles of voice acting” by Rolling Stone. 

For Pohl, Overwatch’s diversity and its hopeful message are central to the game’s success. 

“The whole motto of the game is that it’s a world worth fighting for,” Pohl told In The Know. “The game and the way it works brings people together, but then the premise of the game is about coming together. It’s about Overwatch reuniting to save the world. I think that’s what made people all over the world connect to this game because the diversity allowed so many people to find a character to identify with.”

As an immigrant Pohl knows all about unifying cultures. Her family moved to the U.S. from Germany when she was 8 years old. Back home, most of her family members were writers, actors and directors in Germany’s entertainment industry. She started performing early as a child but her voice-acting career began much later.

“I started out dubbing Khloe Kardashian for German TV,” Pohl told In The Know. 

But when she was offered the Overwatch gig, she didn’t expect much of an upgrade from previous gigs. 

“When I first started working on this game I sort of dismissed it a little bit as just a video game,” Pohl said. “And then when I went in to record I saw the character the first time up on screen and I was like woah she has wings, she’s cool.

Not only did Mercy have wings and full body armor but her character was an intelligent and tough doctor. For Breast Cancer Awareness month, Mercy even donned a pink bodysuit to raise $12.7 million for breast cancer organizations. 

“She’s a very feminine character, very empathetic, she’s all about helping others but then she’s a doctor, very educated, super tough, she’s a bad a**. She’s a real woman,” Pohl said. “And I think that in video games and entertainment we have lacked that for so long. We want to see these types of characters that are like the women we know in real life.”

It became clear to her that Overwatch and Mercy had resonated deeply with gamers.

“Overwatch was very different than other games the voice actors became so much more popular than any other game, ” Pohl said. “I never would have thought that I would meet people from all over the world whose lives had been so touched and altered by this game.” 

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