Big news in the gaming fandom today! Blizzard’s new Overwatch comic “Reflections” went live on the site today, and wrapped up inside was the perfect Christmas present: the game’s first queer character. That’s right, everyone, Lena Oxton, aka Tracer, is canonically a wlw character now. *cue excited screaming*
The comic (read in full here) is an adorable little Christmas story complete with images of many of the games other characters celebrating Christmas in their own way. Tracer, on the other hand, is having no luck finding a gift for her girlfriend until a little girl hands her a present that ends up with being “perfect”.
Perfect is precisely the word I’d use to describe this gift of a revelation. Tracer has been the face of Overwatch since it was released. She was embroiled in controversy even while the game was in beta testing (which I discussed on The Fandomentals), and has been one of the most visible, and most played, heroes ever since. She was the first Overwatch hero to be added to Heroes of the Storm. She’s a fan favorite. She’s the literal poster child for this game. So, although they’ve hinted at there being multiple LGBT+ characters in the game, I never expected Tracer to be one of them. Much less the first one they revealed. I’m floored. This is huge news. HUGE. I’ve been giggling like a fangirl all day and that’s not likely to stop soon.
Oh, and in case this news weren’t already awesome enough, there’s already fanart. Check it out. It’s freaking adorable. My hats off to the artist for making such a quick and adorable work of art. Seriously. That’s impressive.
I can’t wait for more LGBT characters to be revealed in the future, hopefully in just as delightful a way as this one. Can we have Zarya/Mei next? A trans character would be excellent, too. You know what? Just make them all queer. The more the merrier!
Thank you Blizzard. Just…thank you.
December 21, 2016 at 08:22
So glad it was Tracer, now please add Emily as playable too! They could do it as a slow origin overtime, instead of the current introduction style of pre-established but finally revealed character.
I wonder if Russian exclusion will prevent this relationship being addressed in-game or the CGI shorts? That would suck hard, but shouldn’t prevent Emily as a character; they can just delete some voice lines in the Russian localisation if they have to. (censorship sucks but if that was the one hold up for the rest of the world…)
I guess this comic also means RIP on widowtracer/pharmercy for the time being which sucks in its own way, so a little bittersweet but overall wooooooooo, “Cheers love the cavalry’s queer”
December 21, 2016 at 19:16
Emily as a playable character would be A+. I’m already excited for the dialogue they could add with her and Tracer. I like the idea of a slow origin story as well, since that would be something new for the game.
I’m sure they could work around the Russian censorship since dialogue tags are one of the easiest things to change. Or they could slap a mustache on Emily like they did for Ruby in Steven Universe.
We could still get pharmercy, and if Widow is one of the other queer characters then there are some legs to widow/tracer. I’m hoping for a trans character next, though anything would make me happy. I’m still not over that they made the face of their game a wlw. Good job Blizzard. Give me more!
“Cheers love, the Cavalry’s queer” needs to be Tracer’s new tag line.
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