Okay, so predictably Blizzard has used Blizzcon to announce a new Overwatch character, and now Talon (the bad guys) have a support healer – and surprisingly despite them clearly having recycled a lot of Mercy’s look (with more than little bit of Zarya and a lot of David Bowie… I mean a LOT), they’ve managed to avoid the Evil is Sexy trope this time.
Honestly this design is pretty good but I get the feeling that the boobplate is literally a case of “if no boob, how woman!?” given how refreshingly androgynous Moria looks in most of her origin story and lineup pic
It’s also pretty cool how she fills a big hole in Overwatch lore and meets the outspoken player demand for an evil/amoral healer.
Of course Blizzard took Blizzcon as the opportunity for demonstrating how they’re doing representation of women better in their games and media.
They also, a few hours earlier, released what is essentially Reinhardt’s origin story, which features exactly one female character:
An unnamed* redhead with a Disney face who is there to tell him that he doesn’t need to be hero so he can tell her that he totally does.
This is why it’s difficult to believe that, while many of their staff may be trying hard, Jeff Kaplan and Blizzard as an entity care about representation beyond marketing sound bytes and feminist cookies.
– wincenworks
Oh, what could have been.
I wish they would have pushed the medical tubing further, instead of just giving her a little tube backpack. Like maybe extending the tubing down her right arm to emphasize that she deals damage with it. Overall, the design is just very…. Safe. And also not angular enough. Look at the origin story screenshot above; angles!
I’m just kind of disappointed, honestly. One more thin, young-looking white woman, and her black/purple color scheme is giving me Morgana flashbacks.
Also, her powers are very reminiscent of Hel from SMITE and Seris from Paladins. We’ve almost achieved the originality singularity!
-Icy
I see this as a consistent problem with many female character additions to Overwatch… Individually, they’re pretty interesting designs (though it’s guaranteed that they looked better, less “safe”, in concept art), but when put together in a group, they turn into this boring blob of young-looking, thin, mostly pale ladies with a token unique feature here and there.
As I said before, I’d take so much less issue with D.Va (cause her pretty girl design is consistent with her teenage idol persona) if she didn’t follow after introduction of Mercy, Tracer, Widowmaker etc, who all have fatal flaws dictated by “sex sells” in their designs.
~Ozzie
*We understand that Brigitte has a name (thanks for all the readers for informing us of it); however that actually confirms our criticism regarding the supposed need for “doing the research” – the animated short can’t even bother to put her name into dialogue. The audience has to read some auxiliary non-game material beforehand to know who she’s supposed to be.
