A lot of people don’t seem to know this but turning up your Model Quality setting (From Low/Medium to High/Ultra) can have an insane impact on how skins look in First-Person, especially a lot of the OW2 skins, with minimum impact on performance (Less than 5% on most maps). If you pay for/care about how your skins look then you probably wanna do it so you can actually appreciate what you paid for and the work the devs put into these skins. Most online guides you watch about OW Settings only mention the Environmental changes on the Maps that happen if you change this quality, not the skin changes. So I am here with some examples.

I’ll start with a couple of extreme ones -

Hades Pharah on Low Model Quality Vs Hades Pharah on Ultra Model Quality

On the Higher quality model, the Rockets on the launcher and other round elements are replaced with Higher-Poly variants and actually look round like they are supposed to. The Stone parts have sub-surface Stone-like texturing making it actually look like Stone. The Iron handles and Spikes have proper Iron-like shine and texturing. All-in-all, the High-quality model looks miles better.

Hermes Lucio on High Vs Hermes Lucio on Low

On the Higher quality not only are there more scuff marks and texturing added to the surface of his gun but the shine on it is vastly better and it doesn’t look dull/faded in certain lightings anymore.

The sub-surface texturing is one of the biggest differences in most skins when you change this setting. You’ll see it in various ways, like scuff marks, clothing material textures, patterns, dirt marks, skin textures (Moira’s hands especially), etc. Higher-poly elements on the weapon models are also a common difference. Metallic and other types of shines are also added on some weapons, this one can sometimes have a huge impact on how some skins look in some types of lighting (Hermes Lucio is a big example of this).

Changing this setting can completely change the look and your opinion of some weapons and maybe you suddenly start liking using some BP skin you previously decided you don’t like. Now I know that changing this setting also adds visual elements and props on Maps, and on some maps they are added in the most common gameplay area, but there are 27 maps in the game now and less than a handful (Mainly really Eichenwalde) really become more difficult to play on when you turn up this setting.

Part of the reason I am making this post is to advocate for this setting to be updated. To ask the devs to move the Skin Model changes that are currently a part of this setting to a new setting so people can turn up that setting individually. While not being forced to also add the visual elements on Maps.

Here are more examples showing how this setting enhances skins -

Infinite Ace Dva on High Quality Vs Infinite Ace Dva on Low Quality

Really nice pattern on her Cannons. Texturing on her gloves and the Joysticks.

Hinatori Kiriko on High Quality Vs Hinatori Kiriko on Low Quality

Shiny plasticy patterns on her gloves make a massive difference on High quality. Her knife also gets a kevlar texture that I couldn’t show in this screenshot.

Charged Climber Zarya on High Vs Charged Climber on Low

Her skin, the White plastic climbing bits, the White rope, the Blue metal, the Silver metal, everything has different types of sub-surface texturing of Higher quality. Various rounded, small elements are also replaced with Higher-Poly variants and the Shine on the metal bits is much nicer.

Emperor Sigma on High Vs Emperor Sigma on Low

The perforated texturing is obviously noticeable on Higher quality but there’s also a very nice pattern on the Hyperspheres themselves that I couldn’t capture better in this screenshot. There is also more unique texturing on his other hand that you can see while using his shield, I didn’t add the screenshot of that here.

Royal Guard Genji on High Vs On Low

Texture on the Leather makes a massive difference and changes the look of the skin entirely imo. Makes it go from looking like leather-coloured plastic to something actually resembling leather.

Llama Pajamas Illari on High Vs On Low

The plastic bits on the back of her gun, like the Sundial and the Llama’s tail are replaced with Higher-Poly, more rounded variants. There is also subtle micro-texturing on the White plastic bits.

Chained King Reaper on High Vs On Low

Again, one of those skins which looks wildly different because the Metal’s shine looks dull and faded on Low but has a more realistic shine on High. Also, tons of sub-surface texturing on the Metal. Some elements like the Spikes on top also look completely different on High.