Fair question, certainly not. Not under those conditions, and I'm admittedly kinda thinking more along the lines of some cartoons and films and the like, rather than video games. I've heard some people say she and Vi from League of Legends are pretty similar, but I don't know if Vi is Russian, and she's certainly not as large. Also, I don't play LoL, so I'm just going off of images.theNater said:Can you name three AAA games in, say, the past five years that have had a bulky Russian female as a dev-designed playable character? 'Cause I sure can't.Cavouku said:I don't see how the bulky Russian female is really breaking open the diversity-sauce...
I mean, it's not bad, and I'd say it's better than nothing. The article mentioned something about whether this was a step forward? I'd say yes, on the diversity scale. I'm just kinda iffy about it being a politically sound move to draw so much attention to just how diverse this really is.
I just... I don't think I've got the best vantage point on the issue, but something feels kinda off about being so explicit. Like there's too much focus on whether the character is diverse, and it feels like it marginalizes the character. It probably doesn't matter all THAT much in this game (I haven't kept up with it much, though I may peer into it more now), but there's still so much character to explore outside of whether or not they ARE diverse.
I felt like the Walking Dead did this pretty well. I was far more concerned with the character's personalities and motives than the fact that we had multiple non-white people and such. I mentioned Bill from The Last of Us, but Sam and Henry are another example. Yeah they were black, but that wasn't the point, and it never really felt like the point.
Actually, allow me to comment that the fact that the treatment of the (I feel, all of those) characters due to their differences felt very real without being something that tries to jar your attention so much on the fact that they're different. People have some prejudices against some things, and maybe not to others, and you're going to encounter these people, and they will respond accordingly. It's not a statement about diversity, it's a fact of life. I personally categorize that as "implicit", but that's just me.
I'm sorry, I jumped off on a tangent about far more narrative-focused games and their treatment of diversity, which isn't necessarily fair to Overwatch and its genre. To answer your question, I certainly cannot think of three AAA video games in the last five-ish years that have a dev-designed and playable bulky female Russian. Maybe if we crowbar those parameters open a bit more, I can google-fu something up, but we most certainly wouldn't be walking into my area of expertise one way or another. My personal game-favourites would certainly not see many of those anyhow (mostly western-style RPGs, fantasy settings, pre-industrial stuff, etc.).
Cheers, though. Maybe a little sauce spilled onto the plate. It's not ruining my dinner, but the sign-flipping waiter is kinda distracting.