The Overwatch 2 team has announced that starting June 1, the game will celebrate its first Pride Month in series history. These celebrations include some small but meaningful updates, including changes to two current maps in the game: Midtown and Watchpoint: Gibraltar.
Beginning June 1st, the Midtown map will be updated to include the upcoming city appearance shortly after the Pride Parade, with rainbow confetti and accompanying signage scattered freely throughout the map. What to watch: Gibraltar is getting a more subtle update in the form of a photo of Tracer and her longtime partner Emily stationed in a military barracks. This image will also be available as a spray paint for Tracers.
In addition to these map changes, the Pride event will also introduce several permanent symbols and business cards into the game, allowing players to freely express their identities while they play. Cards and symbols represent people including asexual, romantic, asexual, bisexual, gay, gender fluid, intersex, lesbian, non-binary, pansexual and Transgender. For fans looking to express themselves and their sexuality outside of the Overwatch universe, the team also shared a link to the Blizzard Pride Monthly collection, noting that all of Blizzard’s monthly events from May 16 to June 30 All net sales will be donated to the National Center for Transgender Equality.
There is a new Baptiste short story outside of the main game called “As You Are”. .\”The story, featuring a tender conversation between Pharah and Baptiste, is currently available to read in the Overwatch 2 Media Center.
For those curious why Blizzard After waiting so long to celebrate in-game pride, the team shared the answer in a blog post, writing:
\”For those wondering “why now” People: We love our characters and their stories, and as we expanded the OW2 experience to include an upcoming PvE story, we realized there was a lot more we could do in terms of exploring our character identities and relationships. In our first Overwatch 2 Pride event, we knew we wanted to celebrate the diversity in the world worth fighting for. This is just the beginning of Pride in Overwatch 2. \”
Three core members of the Overwatch 2 team – Senior Narrative Designer Jen Stacey, Senior Game Producer Brandy Stiles, and Game Director Aaron Keller – spoke to GameSpot and various The collective interview with the media reiterated this point, stating that in the future the team will focus on “all aspects” of the game’s characters. Identity.
\”I think that’s it” It’s important that we get old looking back at characters to show that the heroes you know and love have more characters, some of which may It’s those identities,” Stacy said. “But even as we create new heroes that connect with them, whether in the queer community or other communities around the world, we see them as whole people and aspects of them, including who they are.”
\”This is us we’re making a small shift right now about where we want [LGBTQ+ representation] to be, not necessarily in the foreground, but as part of the representation and diversity game says Keller.
