In Doomfist's fictional backstory, the playable character became the third generation to wield the gauntlet, and is presented as a villain after killing his predecessor and becoming a leader of Talon, the game's nemesis group.

Doomfist's large "hitbox", or area for taking damage, disadvantages him to characters such as Reaper, Roadhog, and Ana's sleep dart.

At his release, he was expected to fit well in the "dive" team compositions popular in professional play, in which aggressive characters such as Genji and Winston harass the enemy at close range.

[5] Some of the character's costume customization options ("skins") relate to his fictional cultural heritage, such as the orisha gods of the Yoruba religion and the African ceremonial mask tradition.

[7][8] Doomfist's other aesthetic customization options allude to the boxer Muhammad Ali, the combo sequences of fighting video games, and other pop culture references.

Blizzard explained that rather than having to heavily refine Doomfist's offensive capabilities which had become overpowered, transitioning him to a tank still made him a threatening force that could break up defensive groups.

[18] In designing the character, Blizzard's Geoff Goodman said they crafted Doomfist as an "ode to the fighting genre", both in his skill kit and in concept art.

[20] Doomfist had also be considered as a Tank class, but Blizzard did not want to make the mistake again of having a high-health character with powerful attacks as they had initially with Roadhog at the game's introduction.

[20] At one point during development, Doomfist would have been able to pick up enemies and use them as human shields or to throw them, but Blizzard dropped this as he was not supposed to be a wrestler or luchador, according to Goodman.

[19] In the lead-up to Blizzard's official announcement of the playable character, the developers teased his release by modifying the Doomfist gauntlet in Numbani to appear to be stolen from its glass case.

[27][22] Blizzard finally confirmed the Doomfist's development with a teaser trailer in early July 2017, a week after news of the release leaked through the game's crash logs.

[13] The reveal cinematic was drawn in an anime-style by Wolf Smoke Studio, based in Shanghai, who had previously expressed and rallied interest in developing an anime in the game's fictional universe.

[29][30] Soon after the reveal, Doomfist became playable on the game's test servers,[24] where some of the character's powers were rebalanced to reduce punch distance and vertical mobility.

Ogundimu became a leader of the Talon group, the nemesis organization to Overwatch, and advocates for his belief that forces of conflict will strengthen humanity.

[37] Doomfist also fulfilled Overwatch's sore lack of a supervillain, according to IGN, in a cast of other morally ambiguous but tragic and redeemable characters.

The critic anticipated Doomfist as the start of Blizzard making Talon into a villainous organization à la Legion of Doom (Justice League) or Masters of Evil (Avengers).

[33] Writing for Hardcore Gamer, Spencer Rutledge opined that "having [Doomfist] representing his African heritage in the best of ways, Overwatch is making sure to stay at the forefront of representation.