Since its release in 2016, Overwatch’s core mantra in creating new characters has remained the same: represent as many different people as we can, and represent them as respectfully as we can. This mantra has been mostly successful in representing nationalities, cultures and ideologies, but has often fallen behind in one key area: queerness.
This isn’t to say Overwatch doesn’t include any queer characters; far from it, as the game currently features five heroes that have been explicitly confirmed as such. Tracer and Pharah proudly fly the pink and orange flags as lesbians, Soldier 76 yearns after his military ex-lover Vincent, and Baptiste and Lifeweaver flirt with just about everybody as bisexual and pansexual men respectively. Even in the relatively progressive gaming landscape of 2023, five outwardly queer characters is a respectable attempt at representation. Where Overwatch falls behind is in the depth of this representation and how much it actually means for these characters.
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Let’s start with Tracer (real name Lena), the first hero confirmed to be queer. In December 2016, seven months after Overwatch’s initial release, Blizzard released thetie-in comic Reflections, a Christmas special offering a slice-of-life look at the various heroes’ lives outside ever-repeating, meaningless gunfights – even the eternal edgelord Reaper is granted a moment looking longingly at a stable, happy family.
Reflections broke important ground by introducing Lena’s partner Emily, and explicitly showing the two lovers living together and sharing a kiss. Short of including a hanging lesbian flag in their apartment decor, Blizzard couldn’t have been more clear in confirming Lena as its first queer hero. With this in mind, Lena’s love for her lady would carry over from this auxiliary comic into the game itself, right?
A spray and a voice line. A single, unlockable, easily missed spray, and a voice line with a low, random chance of playing at all, limited to King’s Row. The spray itself is no more than a bust of Emily’s head, so without making the effort to read the supplementary comic (which many players understandably wouldn’t), there’d be no way of knowing this isn’t a spray of some random woman with no clear relation to Lena.
The voice line – “I wonder if I have time to visit Emily? No, better stay focused.” – equally offers no notion of who Emily is to Lena, just that she knows someone called Emily who lives in King’s Row. As such, it’s not farfetched to consider that Blizzard was hesitant to explicitly confirm Lena’s sexuality in the game itself where players would actually see it, as opposed to in a supplementary comic that would only be read by a select few.
Despite Soldier 76 being the second hero confirmed as queer, the offerings for Jack Morrison are even slimmer. Once again confirmed in supplementary material, 2019’sshort story Bastetincludes a conversation between Jack and Ana reflecting on an old flame of his, Vincent. Jack solemnly notes that Vincent went on to be happily married, a fact he knows by shamelessly using the informational reach of Overwatch to look into his ex’s current personal life. Evidently, there are some interesting story threads to be pulled on here regarding Jack leaving his old life behind and how, beneath the stoic surface, there’s some part of him that wishes he could simply return to a simple life with Vincent.
He even laments that, “Everything I fought for was to protect people like him”, a line absolutely loaded with subtext implying that societal homophobia still lives on in the futuristic setting of Overwatch. And yet, nothing has been said about Vincent since. Once more, Blizzard offers an unlockable spray, depicting an old photo of Jack and Vincent (the same art featured in Bastet), as its sole in-game representation of Soldier 76’s sexuality.
A few years later, in April 2023, Blizzard broke new ground by including a hero’s queerness in their initial reveal, rather than retconning it in later on. Lifeweaver was clearly stated to be pansexual upon his introduction, withLead Narrative Designer Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie clarifyingthat members of the queer community were consulted when creating him, and a point was made internally to question if it was a label or is this something the developer intended to do something with.
Unlike Tracer and Soldier 76, whose queerness have been primarily limited to supplementary media, Lifeweaver’s sexuality is demonstrated within the game in both his incredibly flamboyant plant-based design and his interactions with other heroes, proving that it was indeed something Blizzard ‘intended to do something with’. Far from Tracer’s vague allusions to someone called Emily in London, these flirtatious encounters not only cement Lifeweaver’s sexuality, but also that of Baptiste.
This would be followed up on in June’sshort story As You Are, in which Baptiste and Pharah reflect on their interpersonal relationships with other members of the Overwatch team. In what may be the most explicit confirmation in Overwatch’s past, present and future, Baptiste sheepishly asks Fareeha if there’s anything going on between her and the charming cowboy Cassidy. She laughs at the prospect of it, telling Baptiste he’s like a brother to her and noting “besides, I’m a lesbian.”
Queer joy is a difficult thing to represent authentically, but author Jen Stacey absolutely nails it here. Baptiste is shown to be grateful that Fareeha trusts him enough to be so open about her identity, and simultaneously comforted to know that queerness is something the two of them share. When two queer people click like this, the inherent notion of mutual safety and trust changes the relationship for the better; it’s a lovely surprise to see that an Overwatch short story can include a moment so carefully and lovingly written for the queer community.
Blizzard also later implies an unrequited past between Fareeha and the good doctor Mercy, with Baptiste asking if Fareeha was “hoping for more” from a recent mission with Angela, only to be met with her dejectedly admitting “No. I guess not.” This gently references the longstanding Pharmercy ship created by the fanbase without making a huge deal of it and reducing either character to just each other’s girlfriend, there is genuine depth to the characters of Fareeha, Baptiste, and Angela with just one interaction.Thisis how you write queer characters…
The release of As You Are was paired withOverwatch’s first overt celebration of Pride, with an event running through June that transformed the Midtown map into a modern American city caught in the middle of a Pride parade, with flags flying, confetti falling and crossings drenched in rainbows. The event also granted free player icons and banners representing a variety of pride flags, even those usually forgotten by Pride events such as the intersex and genderfluid flags, as well as specific banners featuring the game’s queer characters paired with their respective flags.
To call back to Overwatch’s first attempt at representation and improve upon it, Emily is now permanently featured in a photo frame on Watchpoint: Gibraltar, smiling at the camera and forming her hands into a heart alongside Lena. This picture, as you may be able to guess by now, is also available as a spray; yet unlike the original example of Emily being limited to a non-specific spray, this openly loving spray now carries much more weight as a microcosm of Overwatch’s improvement in queer representation.
Overwatch’s queer representation is not perfect. Like all rainbow capitalism, Midtown’s Pride redesign lasted only until the end of June, returning to its drab metropolitan self as quickly as it came. Some of the confirmations mentioned have also come at unfortunate times, such as Lifeweaver being revealed midway througha civil suit against Activision Blizzard over failing to fairly pay the salaries of Overwatch League players, leading to some cynically accusing Lifeweaver of being a sudden rainbow-painted shield to protect Activision Blizzard’s public image.
Despite this, there is a very clear amount of effort and care put into queer representation from members of the Overwatch team, in addition to marked improvements in how exactly it goes about making that representation authentic. Queer representation in Overwatch is only getting better, and I sincerely believe there’s even more improvement to see as yet.
