How Tracer’s Sexuality Changed ‘Overwatch’

It didn’t.

But you wouldn’t know that based on the reaction of the Internet, where many of its denizens are totally convinced that Blizzard has forsaken them due to a detail of a character’s personal life that was shown outside of the game. Allegations ranging from pandering, to being unnecessary, to flat out saying that a company that has delivered free characters, new maps and a wealth of new items to keep the game alive has lost their respect have been lobbied at the game and developers. And why? Because the girl on the cover likes to bump clams?

If you somehow haven’t heard by now, the latest Overwatch web comic features the heroes and villains of the game celebrating the holidays with their loved ones. Primarily focusing on Tracer as she rushes to find the perfect Christmas gift for her significant other before meeting with the lonely Winston, the moment in question comes when the gift is given to a red head female who happens to thank her with a kiss. A rather mundane scene has now become the talk of the gaming world over the last week between those who are praising the reveal and those that I referenced above who have numerous problems with it. What are they saying, you ask? Here’s a sample of what some of the negative reactions have been funneling in on various forums.

I really wish they wouldn’t do stuff like this for this game now really. We’re not allowed to just enjoy the game anymore because we have to put up with a load of braindead social correctness bulls***. I’d rather put up with dark souls 3’s crowd telling me to kill myself again than this.

Yes, because a single character in a cast of 23 characters is “social correctness bulls***”. Because a web comic is keeping you from enjoying a game. Newsflash, being gay is becoming more acceptable these days, which is why we’ll more than likely see homosexual characters be featured in future games. I hope you find a way to continue enjoying your games despite gay people existing in them, but it sounds more like the medium is passing you by. Being gay isn’t “PC”, it’s reality, and it’s time to get used to it.

The purpose of the comic was to exploit LGBT awareness to stir up controversy for a game the week before Christmas.

The teasing and “Hype” for an alternative sexual character was intentionally a path leading to Christmas sales.

Because Overwatch was having such a hard time building a player base, right? 20 million in a few months really shows how desperate Blizzard was for those few extra sales. But we’re now at a point where anything other than heterosexual representation is either “pandering” or “exploiting”, despite the idea of again, having ONE character among a cast of 23 being a lesbian is pretty normal these days considering about 3.8 percent of the US population identifies as LGBTQ according to this 2015 Gallup poll. Then again, gay people can’t exist in fiction without an agenda, right? Because a single character in a growing cast of 23 and counting is asking for “special treatment”, as I’ve seen mentioned on other forums.

1. Tracer was not presented as gay from the beginning, so it seems like she was changed to being gay.

2. Tracer was paired with some random nobody that was just made up rather another playable or important character.

3. Not that Overwatch’s story is deep or anything, but it seems like the presentation of Tracer being gay served no other real purpose than to show that she’s gay, so the presentation didn’t seem organic, and more agenda driven.

Wasn’t presented as being gay? What, was she supposed to weigh 300 lbs with a shaved head and a biker jacket with a rainbow flag stitched to it? It may come as  a surprise to some, but many gay people don’t wear their sexuality on their sleeve. They aren’t walking stereotypes. They’re actual people. Which makes the last claim that it’s not organic ironic since she apparently needed to wear a “Hi, I’m gay!” sign around her neck for this to feel organic. And the fact that she’s paired with a “nobody” instead of a different character? Do you *really* think it would be better if two characters were revealed as gay instead of one?

It simply didn’t need to be. There’s no plot arc for any character. Sexual orientation doesn’t select the way a character plays. It has exactly 0 bearing on anything.

However, it’s SUCH a big deal to liberals nowadays that companies pick up on the hype and use it to their advantage. This is known as pandering. Most people don’t have a problem with gays, it’s this bulls*** pandering that pisses people off.

No one on this cast needed to be gay or straight. They’re not real, and their orientation doesn’t change how the game plays.

You can tell what the mindset is coming from this comment based on using “liberal” as an attack, but I just want to point out that “this bulls*** pandering that pisses people off” completely contradicts the idea right above this quote that “It has zero bearing on anything.” I don’t see how someone would be pissed off to begin with if they really felt it didn’t matter, but even if it doesn’t matter to you, it obviously matters to those who found a character in the game they can identify with. Then again, I *REALLY* don’t think that the issue is that “No one on this cast needed to be gay or straight.” Because I can’t seem to find the outrage for Pharah’s unnecessary and forced boyfriend in the same comic.

Or Reaper following an unknown family in the same comic.

Or Torbjorn and Reinhardt’s families being revealed… IN THE SAME COMIC!

But I’m guessing that none of the images above make you feel icky when you look at them, so those are A-OK. Objectively, you could say that the Tracer scene is equally as pointless as all of the above ones. Yet, hers is the only one being labeled as such. Hmm… I wonder why?

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about the real issue here. Gaming has come a long way as a medium, and I feel that making the poster child of one of the most popular games of the year was a bold, yet necessary move by Blizzard if we want to keep moving towards normalizing homosexual characters in the way that many of the posters above and those like them pretend they already are. But reactions like these show how much farther we have to come, because we’re still sifting through comments calling the move a desperate plea for holiday sales despite the fact that Blizzard has been talking about this since at least 2015. Their goal was to reveal it in a natural and tasteful way. What better way to do it than to reveal it in a side story that’s all about spending time with loved ones during the holidays?

Let’s be real though. To these people, the only way for the reveal would have been “tasteful” and “natural” would have been for it to have never happened at all. Remember that in decades past, including minorities in prominent roles was also considered “pandering”, but with diligence and the continued usage of diverse characters in a variety of roles, seeing it has become more and more commonplace. Not that there isn’t a ton of room to improve, but homosexuality in the public consciousness is still behind in so many ways. So I can only hope this trend continues until we stop seeing gay characters as a gimmick and more as a facet of a more complex whole. And that won’t happen if we pretend they don’t exist.

Or you know, keep typing away furiously when girls kiss each other.