This is truly fantastic not only for the authentic touch of the culture, but also for the excellent choice of a dancer outfit for a character who has elegant dancing sequences as her emotes. This is really the sort of thing I’d hope to see in a game as touted for diversity as Overwatch is.
I really do wish that Jeff Kaplan would look to these kinds of designs and priorities for his goal of “trying to do women characters better” rather than looking for ways to make their previous design standards seem more acceptable under casual examination.
And on today’s episode of Doing Women Better™, Blizzard finally granted us the much requested Magician Symmetra. Only instead of going for something super classy like the many fan interpretations out there or even just ladies in suits from real life, they went with…this.
Lack of pants and framing her bust (what is even with those metal plates) aside, the fact that this is a legendary skin and costs 3000 credits when it’s so close to her default skin makes this whole thing very disappointing.
Thanks for submitting this highly requested post, including some quality scathing commentary! The Saga of Pantless Symmetra continues.
This would be insulting enough just by the virtue of being a fetishy leotard instead of a suit, but what the hell are those boob-holder bars?! They’re some sort of garbage afterthought slapped on to make this look more “sci-fi”, I guess? Why would a costume need that? Because you can’t be science fiction without framing the tits with random pieces of metal?
Since the bingo lacks a “What the fuck am I looking at?!” square, I marked “Boobplate” instead.
Fun fact: a convention I attended last week had an Overwatch: Character design done right! talk that I just couldn’t subject myself to come to, both out of the fear of my brain melting on sight and because I didn’t want to rain on some enthusiastic fan’s parade when the time for Q&A comes.
I’m still amused that at the same time Blizzard made THIS, easily disproving the “character designdone right” claim.
Why is Symmetra sexualized even as a dragon, though? That skin really could do without reptilianboobs. They even made her dragon feet super strange-looking, because she always needs to be in high heels!
Also, why none of the characters released since last year get a spooky costume? It’s not like Orisa, Doomfist and Sombra are any less likely to celebrate Halloween than any other OW hero coming from a culture that doesn’t care about this holiday. And, most of all, where are the sexy maleOverwatch costumes? Do we always have to rely on fan-made content to provide that?
~Ozzie
*Unfortunately, as per usual, old skins are available again.
As a child of the 80s I am somewhat confused about why Zarya’s “Totally 80s” outfit is horror themed… I mean… they weren’t that bad. The fashion was that bad, but I don’t see how it counts as horror.
Also, Blizzard seems to really want to double down on new skins for Symmetra that maximize the panty flash… even if she’s a dragon monster.
Since apparently there’s a lot of confusion (as in – lack of reading comprehension) in notes under the Symmetra follow up post; for the record: Blizzard are the ones saying that the feedback and the stats mean Symmetra is currently nonviable.
Detailed rules for our Halloween contest, including the deadline (Nov 20), are available on this subpage.
We encourage everyone, despite artistic skill, to take part in the competition. As long as artwork is finished, readable and within the contest rules, it’s totally eligible for a win! We’re intending to judge creative ideas, not skill levels of the contestants. Good luck!
~Ozzie & – wincenworks
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Okay, now we’ve all been assured that Mercy’s sexy witch outfit was not even a little bit sexualized or made to pander to a particular demographic…
…and that Blizzard only makes these special events for “fun” and certainly not as part of a larger strategy to make money and promote themselves…
…let’s talk about the other aspect of the Halloween event: White washing and placing a lower value on characters of color, especially female characters of color (so much so they forget that they’re skin is brown).
For those already frantically typing apologies:
Hanzogot to keep his tattoos, they even recolored them for him to better fit his “demon” persona (and his grey skin tone matches his regular)
So how many of you noticed that Pharah, Symmetra and Hanzo are
Possessed ,Vampire and Demon respectively but generic white guy Soldier 76 is “immortal”? That’s not generic “Immortal” that’s “homage to Michael Jackson’s Thriller” btw.
Now you’ve typed your bit about the Summer Games Event did you happen to notice how Mei got completely left out of that too?
Here’s the reality: Blizzard makes games with a very big focus on making money, and with Overwatch they’ve been promoting themselves as being more concerned about representation – but they haven’t been following through. Not for women, not for other cultures and not for people of color. It’s basically an going mess of glorification of white men at the expense of others, this leads to a certain demographic having a relationship with the media that’s well…
tl;dr: Blizzard’s depictions of women in general are terrible, but their treatment of female characters of color is even worse. Blizzard is pretty blatant about using brown skin tones as an optional accessory in their ongoing quest to make money via highly commercial video games and that is not okay no matter how many half-arsed excuses are made on their behalf.
