The female characters in Overwatch...look pretty darn cool

[Nomanslander]

WIdowmaker is hot!

She's been sexually objectified whether you think it's alright to do that or not.

 

[Kopikatsu]

WIdowmaker is hot!

She's been sexually objectified whether you think it's alright to do that or not.

I imagine it's pretty hard to objectify an object. Just pointing that out.

Edit: I didn't think this needed clarification, but I'll give it anyway. Because, you know, internet. I'm calling her an object because she is a video game character that was designed in a modeling program and not a sentient being with any real measure of agency.

 

[Longing]

I just really wish we'd get rid of the boob window. Reminds me very heavily of Samara's outfit and it was just as unnecessary then. Biggest pet peeve ever. Her freaking suit goes down to her bellybutton :/

and on closer look, Symmetra seems one heavy wind away from flashing everyone. I can see her pelvis. so close, yet so far sigh.

 

[megaflash]

ACTIVATE BUTT ENHANCEMENT (Widowmaker)

Seems like an animation error rather than anything intentional.

Whatever it is, I find it funny. Mostly because I am imagining scenarios where this actually works in the real world.

 

[Eddie the head]

ACTIVATE BUTT ENHANCEMENT (Widowmaker)

Seems like an animation error rather than anything intentional.

You'ed be surprised what programmers slip in there when no one is looking.

 

[The Madman]

So according to the story on their website Widowmaker is basically a zombie. The reason her skin is purple is from lack of blood-flow and her brain is basically a big scrambled mess after having been brainwashed over and over.

What is it with Blizzard and having hot undead women in their games? It was already weird enough with Sylvanas.

But nitpicking Blizzard tropes aside the game actually looks really good and I love the art style. Reminds me a bit of Unreal Tournament meets Pixar meets Valve, which is definitely not a bad thing since I like all those things. I'm not normally much for competitive shooters but I might give this one a shot when and if I ever get the chance to play it.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

ACTIVATE BUTT ENHANCEMENT (Widowmaker)

Seems like an animation error rather than anything intentional.

At the 1:00 mark you see! Clearly Widowmaker is a terminator!

 

[VanQ]

I'm just hyped to see Blizzard doing something new and interesting. I'm also particularly happy that they've gone for a less dark setting than their games usually have. I'm really hoping that I can get into the beta and give it a whirl, looks right up my alley. I'm just worried that their monetization model will be as bad as Heroes of the Storm's is. While HotS is a brilliant game, its payment model blows.

Ignore Popido. Just look up their post history for reference.

Besides his obvious sarcasm, he's not wrong. The females do all have the same hourglass figures. I actually thought when I saw the trailer that there'd be sexism posts within the first few hours because of that. The male characters range from dwarf to gorilla to middle aged dude to young buff black dude but most of the women just look like reskins of the same model with changes to the height, breast and butt sliders. But apparently since one girl has power armor everything is okay. It's like when I'm disappointed with the lack of diversity, the usual people that I recognise that are disappointed have this double standard because they like it.

Maybe we just have to wait until the Zero Suit alternate skin is revealed.

I'm calling it now.

And to be honest, I love the designs, every single one of them. I think the theme is perfect for racial diversity and it's already exhibiting that. It's just that I expect outrage at this point.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I don't know about it being boob-shaped armour. To me, it looks more like they're going for a motif crossing a falcon and a plane. To me looks more like the puffy chest of a falcon and the sort of weird sort-of bubble-shaped aerial vehicles you always find in sci-fi.

Well, it isn't boob-shaped, like I wrote

Yes, she seems to have the theme of a flying fortress, something aerodynamic but bulky.

I was thinking more like gunship. Like if you pointed to an Apache helicopter and said, "Turn that into body armour and weapons".

 

[VanQ]

But if you want, I would love to cooperate with you in an attempt to draw Blizzard's attention to this, and hopefully see this resolved. Maybe if this game updates regularly or cycles heroes like LoL, then maybe updates can introduce characters like a... German bodybuilder heroine named Blitzkrieg who deals drop AoE electric damage and a stun ability, and even supercharge other heroes to give them stronger attacks or charge their supers, and maybe she can do a speedball special with other players or use her electricity to magnetically push someone. OH OH and her special is an AoE attack where any enemy stuck in her electric field is stunned for 5 secs, but she can't move either.
Yeah I'd play that.

That sounds like a cool character. We need to get a drawfriend on this. Sounds like fun mechanically too, make her able to push or pull depending on if she targets a friend or foe. Make it happen.

 

[maninahat]

I saw the trailers the other day. I'm pleased by it being an even gendered roster, and there is even some ethnic diversity in there (how often do you see an Indian female playable character?). Plus their powers and abilities are awesome, and even in the non-gameplay trailer, it's nice touch that the little boy's favourite hero happens to be female.

That said, all the female characters are attractive, barbie-dolled and a good number of them have boob plates. The game is a clear step in the right direction, but the game designers haven't shaked that notion that women could be different shapes, or ugly, or different ages, which is something they had no problem applying to the male characters. If they'd sprinkled a bit of Borderland's female character design in there, it would have been practically perfect.

In terms of the game play, it does look pretty darn cool. Sure the similarities to Team Fortress 2 are as plain as day, but I don't think that harms the game at all. There is plenty thrown in to give it a separate identity, and there isn't exactly a glut of multiplayer FPSs with distinctive cartoon characters and ludicrously over-powered special abilities.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Looks cool. Art style is simply gorgeous. Will probably check it out.

Also, a medic who is an angel just blew mind right now. Good work, Blizzard. Going to get a new one.

 

[Tsukuyomi]

I didn't bother to watch Blizzcon. They lost me after I quit WoW and I finished Diablo so I felt like I had little need for them. But when I saw Overwatch I was really impressed. It looks like it's either gonna hit things out of the park or crash and burn really hard. Given blizzard's track-record, I'm leaning towards the 'knock it out of the park' side.

About the gender business, I agree with some points. I was impressed by the roster, and visually yes there's a few things that are off or not perfect, but we're not dealing with Call of Duty here. There's a lot of impossible going on, so unless we get something REALLY bad, I think it's worth being flexible in our expectations and judgement. I think the industry knows what the community wants by now in terms of gender, and I think that by now Blizzard likely has a pretty darn good ratio of men to women and many different ethnicities working for them. To an extent I trust them to balance old habits, marketing strategy, and just what they wanna do, with doing what's right and what's fair.

That said, Overwatch's designs, for both the men and women, made me come to one conclusion that, somehow, I'd never reached before. It's so stupidly simple that I kick myself for not realizing it. When we play, when we invest ourselves into a game, when we project ourselves onto a character to some extent, male or female, there's one universal truth in gaming that we're showing:

Everyone wants to be a badass.

Doesn't matter if you're male, female, white, black, purple, green, orange, whatever. Everyone wants to win, to rack up a stupidly good score or otherwise be awesome in their own way. What if, now this is just a question, what if for both genders the body type contributes to that fantasy? If I'm gonna imagine myself as a tower-busting, control-point capping badass, you can be sure, even if I may not really notice it, I'm probably gonna think of myself as thinner and more in-shape than I am. What if for some women that applies too? What if, when they think of themselves doing awesome shit they also think "yes, I can do all this AND I've got a damn good body too!" Would that really be so wrong? Different people have different tastes, and not every woman wants to be the same shape, but I feel like if I can sit here wishing I had a physique like Hanzo, it's not unreasonable to think there's a woman out there wishing they could fit into Tracer's pants like she does.

Is there a line to that that can be crossed? Yes. God yes, people have done it and it's not been pleasant. Is it too much to think that maybe when these characters were designed there were good, sensible women involved who said "shit, if I'm gonna be a sniper-rifle goddess with a heart of ice, I'd wanna be 12/10 to boot!"? I don't think so.

I'm all for equality, but part of equality is letting the nature of games (letting us be someone or something we're not for a bit), do their thing for all of us, male and female. Everyone wants to be a badass. Is it too much to think that part of being one is doing all that they do in the trailer and being traditionally attractive to boot?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Well, at least Blizzard's trying. Not always succeeding, but trying.

 

[halisme]

The females do all have the same hourglass figures. I actually thought when I saw the trailer that there'd be sexism posts within the first few hours because of that. The male characters range from dwarf to gorilla to middle aged dude to young buff black dude but most of the women just look like reskins of the same model with changes to the height, breast and butt sliders. But apparently since one girl has power armor everything is okay. It's like when I'm disappointed with the lack of diversity, the usual people that I recognise that are disappointed have this double standard because they like it.

If you look at the wallpapers, there are some male characters that haven't been announced yet, so I'm hoping it's the same with the females and we'll get some more diversity in body shape, and age.

I'm not sure you can have it both ways as far as sexualized characters is concerned, since it ignores the underlying issues of the debate. People who find it offensive are still going to find it offensive. It's not enough to have a 1:1 ratio for sexualized and none sexualized characters.

thankfully I don't think that's a problem here. None of these designs are particularly offensive. I like the art style and character designs so far. It's nice to see bright, light hearted designs coming back into vogue. We can only have so many brown and grey shooters. I'm not usually a blizzard fan, but I may pick this up in the future. It looks really good so far.

Personally, I'm fine with equal sexulisation, it's not a bad thing when done equally, unless people think that sex is bad.

OP: If you read the back stories, a lot of the characters costumes make more sense. Symetra's actually a hard light architect, who "approached hard-light manipulation differently than her peers, with their more procedural, mechanical constructions, instead weaving her constructs in the motions of the traditional dance of her homeland". So it would make sense for her to have freedom of movement, even if it's slightly more revealing than the others.

 

[blackdwarf]

The female chars are cool and have good variety in theri design, but I would prefer some more body types for the females. This has always been my biggest issues with character roster based games like LOL or fighting games: the female have barely any difference in their body types.

still like some of them tho. Really looking forward to play Bastion and Symmetra.

 

[Erttheking]

ACTIVATE BUTT ENHANCEMENT (Widowmaker)

And the thread was immediatly proven wrong.

It's cute though that people think Blizzard are somehow above mainstream sex appeal, when Blizzard are one of the most mainstream vanilla studios currently existing.

You're gonna have to fill in the blanks on how Widow maker's ass somehow disproves that the designs in this game are cool.

And who the ruddy Hell made that claim? I flat out pointed out the sexualization on Widowmaker in the OP. Just about everyone in the thread, even the ones who like the designs, also pointed them out.

What point are you trying to make here?