This is a result of Blizzard gently touching on the queer nature of its characters before running away and never mentioning it again. Fans are forced to draw their own conclusions, and the post-launch announcement that some characters are gay simply feels like performative nonsense. Was this the plan from the start, or did it seem like an easy diversity win when writing the next co
When I play Overwatch , I bounce between DPS and Tank heroes. Entirely because of Mercy’s design I have dabbled in Support, but I’m frankly not that great at it, so DPS and Tanks it is. I’m in the mood to write about Overwatch, but at the time of writing Overwatch 2 has not yet launched and the original has been shut down. I missed the beta, haven’t played for at least a year, and I’m nowhere near enough of an expert to comment on anything meaningful. That’s why I’m ranking all of Overwatch’s Tanks by how well they could drive a real t
Overwatch 2 is taking Blizzard’s 2016 hit and making it a free-to-play game which, as features lead Jade King points out , makes perfect sense. In the past six years, we’ve had goliaths like Apex Legends, Destiny 2, and Fortnite take centre stage – Overwatch is simply evolving with the ti
ItsSliker admitted to scamming over $200,000 from his followers for his gambling addiction, sparking platform-wide controversy on Twitch. Gambling has long been a problem for the streaming site, becoming the latest in a long line of ‘metas’, and now several high-profile streamers have called on Twitch to ban them en ma
Despite my praise for the designs, Overwatch is not a game with in-depth characters – it’s all skin deep. Any attempt to flesh them out usually comes through fine print in the lore, promo reels, or external material like comic books. I understand why fans want these great designs to be built upon further, and I appreciate that a hero shooter all about utilising powers and fast PvP play is not the ideal genre for deep, interconnected stories. Overwatch has two queer characters, which is more than most triple-A games, but it’s hard to give it too much credit when their queerness has been so completely downplayed. It’s often lauded for its diversity – it even once had a GLAAD nomination – but that fact is its two queer characters are white, cis, Overwatch2fans.Com and straight passing, while there are more playable animals and playable robots than there are playable Black women. That’s not too much of a stretch though, given that there are zero Black women in Overwatch’s heaving roster right now – Sojourn will join in Overwatch 2, but that feels too late for a game with playable 32 charact
Main tanks can’t go anywhere, which is just a simple fact. To combat a main tank, you need damage, so if the other team runs two DPS and you run an off-tank, you’re going to feed ultimates like they’ve been brought up with a silver spoon. There’s just no way you’re running one support with two tanks and two DPS either, mostly for the same reason – it will affect the damage/healing balance per team way too much. As a result, the most basic logic available to us suggests each team will be made up of a main tank, two DPS, and two healers – no room for off-tanks. And, as with all metas, team formations are often mirrored. Gr
While the main tank functions in this way, the off-tank is doing every tanky job the main tank doesn’t have time for – protecting support heroes, supplementing damage heroes, and tending to any objective that requires a big, chunky health bar. From Roadhog’s hook to Zarya’s bubbles, each off-tank has some degree of authority over space manipulation, too, which allows them to use the main tank’s anchorage to support more active area control. They’re an essential part of fluid, facile, and fantastic Overwatch – and guess what? They’ll be the first on the chopping block when it moves to
Meanwhile, he’ll see Tracer on the other side of the war, since she’s a Redcoat Cavalrywoman with twin Revolutionary-era revolvers in her hip holsters. I understand the logic behind this; lots of the other characters delve into their national cultural heritage too. Widowmaker is a Mousquetaire, Zarya a Polyanitsa warrior, Genji a samurai, and Lucio a Conquistador. But for a long time, the excuse held up in defence of Tracer and Soldier 76’s queerness only featuring off-screen is that Overwatch simply isn’t the type of game that allows for anything more. Well, the Archives skins do. There is so much cultural history in their queerness, in Stonewall and the earliest Pride protests, in the punk movement, in art, and through cultural trailblazers that speak to the heart of who Soldier 76 is far more than just putting him in a different soldier outfit from a few centuries
Overwatch has received a lot of deserved praise and justified criticism for its growing cast of characters, two of which have been confirmed as members of the LGBT community. Tracer, the game’s cover star, is a lesbian whose partner has featured in the universe a number of times, while hardened marine Soldier 76 is also homosexual. This diversity is welcome, and a step above many other games out there, but much of the queer discussion surrounding Overwatch is pushed to the sideli
