Designed by Arnold Tsang, she was introduced as a background character in a 2017 update for Overwatch to help establish the game's "Junkertown" setting, she serves as its ruler.

In the game's 2022 sequel, Overwatch 2, she was added as a playable character upon release, establishing her real name as Odessa "Dez" Stone and expanding her backstory.

Players hoped for a playable version of her to be added to the title, while various fan works and cosplays followed suit, with game director Jeff Kaplan further teasing her inclusion.

While designing the game's "Junkertown" setting as part of a 2017 update for Overwatch, assistant art director Arnold Tsang came up with the idea of a "Queen" character that would hold competitions at the settlement.

[1] When designing her playable character and gameplay, they used her existing lore as a basis, aiming to portray her with "tough, almost brutal, personality" while also wanting to avoid anything that may seem magical or elegant.

After getting the role, she noted there was very little material to establish her voice for Junker Queen outside of storyboards for an in-production animated short, and researched the fandom to get a better idea of the character and audience expectations of her portrayal.

In addition she has several piercings: two tusk earrings dangling from her ears, lower lip ring, and small spikes on the sides of her brow above her eyes.

[9][7] Across her body are various spiked bits of armor notably on her right knee and left shoulder, some of which have been recognized by fans as faceplates from "omnics", a type of sentient robot in the Overwatch setting.

First introduced in a 2017 update for the video game Overwatch, she is the ruler of "Junkertown", and directly opposed to fellow characters Junkrat and Roadhog, who she has banned from the settlement with orders to shoot them on sight.

Trained at a young age to fight hostile omnics roaming the Australian wasteland, she utilized parts of them to form armor, namely a large gauntlet that can manipulate electromagnetism.

[17][3] In literary works, Junker Queen is featured in the short story A Friendly Rivalry by Justin Groot, Gavin Jurgens Fyhrie, and Miranda Moyer, set after the events of the game's "Zero Hour" storyline.

While she was depicted with a large axe early on and the developers initially considered it for her primary weapon, they reconsidered after reflecting on past issues that arose with melee-focused characters, and went with the shotgun instead.

Jess Reyes of Inverse praised the design differences between her and fellow character Zarya despite both being "buff ladies" as examples of body diversity other games could follow.

"[28] In another article for the site, Elie Gould voiced her approval of Junker Queen's design as what she wanted to see more of in contrast to how similar many of the female characters appeared.