One ofOverwatch 2’s maps, Midtown, has received a redesign for Pride Month, decking the street out like a big city Pride parade. But the various rainbows and festivities are far from its best feature. As spotted by players trying out the new take on the map, the update has removed all the cop cars that usually line the street, proving once and for all that they don’t have a place at Pride.
While it’s not clear if this was intentionally weighing in on the ‘cops at Pride’ discourse, the Midtown redesign has turned all of the police cars into generic and dull SUVs. There’s not a single police officer in sight in the rainbow-lined streets of Midtown now, instead letting us focus onOverwatch’sfirst-ever Pride celebrationand all of the new content it’s brought with it.
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This unexpected addition to Overwatch was first spotted by YouTuber Niandra (thanks,Kotaku), who has broken down all of the changes to Overwatch 2 now that the Pride event is live. As we can see in the video, the cop cars are no more, in what seems to be a pretty intentional move to avoid the cops at Pride debate.Blizzardhasn’t commented on the decision, so it’s not clear what its intentions were.
In the LGBTQ+ community, there has long been a feeling that cops don’t belong at Pride events. For starters, it would contradict the origins of Pride - a protestagainstpolice during the Stonewall Uprising. This was when the LGBTQ+ community fought back against police during a raid of the Stonewall Inn, as such raids were commonplace in queer spaces at the time.
Even all of these years later, the queer community has plenty of reason to be distrustful of the police. Recently, London Pride organisers said uniformed officerswouldn’t be welcomeat their events, following reports into the metropolitan police that found them to be “institutionally homophobic”. Critics say this led to an ineffectual investigation into serial killer Stephen Port, who targetted queer men.
There’s also the fact that the police are there to uphold the law - even when those laws are clearly bigoted. We’re seeing this in some parts of America, asnew lawsvillainise and criminalise drag queens and LGBTQ+ spaces that are open to children. With this in mind, police officers at pride could only be a grim reminder of these recent developments, especially in states where the cops might very well be enforcing these laws during Pride.
So, if it was an intentional decision to remove cops from Overwatch for this reason, then it shows some understanding on Blizzard’s part. However, since there are multiple police skins for characters in the game - one of them being for Tracer, who is a lesbian - there is room for doubt.
