I'm extremely happy about this. And just plain baffled at the amount of tears and butthurt. But sadly, I can understand where many of these complaints come from and it has to do with gamers wanting to insert themselves into their favorite characters and not be burdened too much by pesky depth and backstory. :)
But I'm happy! I like this! On the one hand, it's bold of Blizzard to make one of the two biggest Overwatch characters (in terms of visibility) openly LGBTQ. Tracer's a major character for their purposes.
On the other... it still feels "safe." Tracer is young, attractive, fairly femme, as is her girlfriend. This isn't exactly threatening in terms of pure aesthetics. And I think some people wish they'd gone for someone else as the first openly gay character. But who? I know a lot of people were pushing for Zarya, who does -appear- fairly masculine and who could easily be read as queer, but is that too obvious, or too stereotyping?
Me, I figure there's only so many characters where this kind of detail makes sense. Bastion and Zenyatta are robots, Winston's a gorilla (who they might allow to -show- attraction, but interspecies romances are... complicated). I suspect Genji is more machine than man in certain areas. Roadhog and Junkrat are both terrifying and offputting and complicated... Reaper seems beyond physical and emotional intimacy at this point. Reinhardt and Torbjorn seem pretty established in separate hetero relationships.
So Hanzo? McCree? Mei? Sombra? Pharah? Lucio? Symmetra? Soldier: 76? Ana? Mercy? D.VA? Widowmaker? I could probably make an argument one way or the other for most of them, but it'll be interesting to see if Blizzard chooses to reveal any more specifics in the wake of this development.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm not going to let Tracer's orientation get in the way of me blowing her up if she doesn't get out of my way. I got a bomb to deliver to scrap some bots... and I'm getting paid for it!
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But I'm happy! I like this! On the one hand, it's bold of Blizzard to make one of the two biggest Overwatch characters (in terms of visibility) openly LGBTQ. Tracer's a major character for their purposes.
On the other... it still feels "safe." Tracer is young, attractive, fairly femme, as is her girlfriend. This isn't exactly threatening in terms of pure aesthetics. And I think some people wish they'd gone for someone else as the first openly gay character. But who? I know a lot of people were pushing for Zarya, who does -appear- fairly masculine and who could easily be read as queer, but is that too obvious, or too stereotyping?
Me, I figure there's only so many characters where this kind of detail makes sense. Bastion and Zenyatta are robots, Winston's a gorilla (who they might allow to -show- attraction, but interspecies romances are... complicated). I suspect Genji is more machine than man in certain areas. Roadhog and Junkrat are both terrifying and offputting and complicated... Reaper seems beyond physical and emotional intimacy at this point. Reinhardt and Torbjorn seem pretty established in separate hetero relationships.
So Hanzo? McCree? Mei? Sombra? Pharah? Lucio? Symmetra? Soldier: 76? Ana? Mercy? D.VA? Widowmaker? I could probably make an argument one way or the other for most of them, but it'll be interesting to see if Blizzard chooses to reveal any more specifics in the wake of this development.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm not going to let Tracer's orientation get in the way of me blowing her up if she doesn't get out of my way. I got a bomb to deliver to scrap some bots... and I'm getting paid for it!