Apex Legends Developer Explains Wattson's Awkward Gun Hold

Apex Legends' principal animator, Moy Parra, shared a behind the scenes look at the motion capture process for Wattson that explains why the Legend holds her gun in a somewhat awkward way.

As a scientist first and foremost, Wattson isn't as comfortable with guns as some of the other Legends in the game, and her animations reflect that lack of familiarity. Parra says some of that awkwardness can be attributed to the motion capture performer behind Wattson: Parra's niece Thalia Saylors.

"If you ever wondered why Wattson holds her weapons a bit awkwardly compared to say, Bangalore," Parra wrote on Twitter. "That's because my niece who provided the MoCap for her had never held a gun before in her life and we wanted to capture this natural innocence in all of Wattson's move sets."

Parra included a video of Saylors recording the motion capture with director Shawn Wilson in which Saylors performs what would become Wattson's run animation.

"This was one of my favorite shoots ever," Parra wrote in a follow-up tweet. "There was so much emotion happening that day. Apex had just released 3 days before and I was literally working with my family! Huge shout-out to Shawn @jitterbot who directed Thalia on bringing out the Wattson that we all love!"