[5] In concept art for Overwatch, prior to her final design, Mercy had been represented as a black man with white hair and a broad build, but otherwise having similar outfits and abilities as the released version.

[9] Blizzard reported that the charity sale raised over US$12.7 million, the largest single-year donation that the Breast Cancer Research Foundation had seen.

[10][11] On Overwatch's accompanying website, Blizzard published a fictional biography for Mercy, listing her real name, age, and base of operations: Angela Ziegler, 37, and Zürich, Switzerland, respectively.

[18] At release, Mercy's ultimate ability was "Resurrect", which revived any recently eliminated teammates within a certain range, granting them full health and a brief invulnerability.

[25] Blizzard felt by keeping the Resurrect as a skill and adding the new Valkyrie ultimate, it "gives her the opportunity to make big game-making plays and opens a number of new options for her".

Jeff Kaplan said that Blizzard continued to find that with the new kit, Mercy players still kept out of battle save to use Resurrect, when they want the character to be treated as great healer for all team members.

The Overwatch developers stated that they found that many Mercy players were still holding back and using the immediate Resurrects granted by Valkyrie to swing control of the game and which was difficult for opposing teams to counter.

[29][30] Developers noticed if made to jump during this ability at a specific time, Mercy would be launched into the air, and noted that many players were incorporating this into their gameplay.

[33] In response to the player feedback, Blizzard stated that Mercy launching into the air was a bug and further tweaked the ability in a subsequent patch, reworking it so that a jumping mechanism would be included as a feature.

[30] In February 2023, with Overwatch 2 then its early access phase, Mercy received significant nerfs to her the cooldown rate of her Guardian Angel ability, movement, and healing per second.

[37] The mode was set seven years before the events in the main game, in which a strike team consisting of Mercy, Torbjörn, Reinhardt, and Tracer are tasked with thwarting an attack on London perpetrated by an extremist group.

[29] Classified as having a "support" role in Overwatch and its sequel, Mercy fills "the classic healer archetype", with healing being her primary function.

[12][40][41] Though her gameplay design has gone through several iterations with considerably more significant reworks compared to other Overwatch characters, her function as her team's healer has maintained throughout these changes.

In 2015, during the original game's beta period, PC Gamer noted "her job is simply to glue herself to a friendly and not die,"[42] and in 2023, Kotaku wrote that "as she exists now [in Overwatch 2], Mercy's primary function is as a pocket healer and damage booster.

[44] Even equipped with the pistol, Mercy's kit design remains largely of a pacifist nature and she is the only player character in the game that cannot reliably score kills.

Kotaku noted that many of these so-called "Battle Mercies" are often ridiculed, as firing the pistol is perceived to detract from time spent healing teammates.

[44] She also has her "Resurrect" ability, allowing her to revive one fallen teammate shortly after they are killed, though leaving her vulnerable for a few seconds during the process and has a long thirty-second cooldown.

[43] In the tenth issue of the Overwatch digital comic book, Mercy is briefly featured and seen reading a letter, implied to be Genji's.

[45] Tyler Colp of PC Gmmer wrote that "she is often the scapegoat for the shooter's balance issues, a healer who many players point to as the parasite leeching away Overwatch's competitive integrity.

"[45] Her Resurrect ability was considered "unfair" by some players,[57] and due to it being able to cause such a considerable impact on the flow of a game, Kill Screen's Joshua Calixto referred to Mercy as "the most terrifying character in Overwatch.

[63] Actress Amber Heard was reported to have spent two months designing her own Mercy cosplay for Elon Musk, after he told her she resembled the character, his favorite in Overwatch.

[65] Mercy has also been cited as a commonly picked character in the healslut community, which engages in dominance and submission roleplay both in-game and through external means.

[67] The relationship is one of the more popular fan-created ones, based on Genji's fictional biography, which includes Mercy saving his life and help rehabilitate him into a cyborg.

[69] Gita Jackson of Kotaku wrote that, "while some fans don't like the idea of the characters being canonically straight, there are other concerns that go beyond preference for a particular [relationship].