Editing Overwatch Archives Skins Missed Opportunity

<br>Brigitte is a far more relatable character than Mercy, and girls with hair like that are always great friends. She's not intimidating like Mercy, instead she knows the solution to most problems is eating ice cream, watching Mean Girls, and listening to Taylor Swift. She'll sit in her old threadbare jumper on her cheap couch with her store-bought rose and she'll offer solutions, but it doesn't matter if these solutions are impossible and ridiculous - most problems can be solved by talking about them, and Brigitte's understanding of that makes her the most supportive Support there<br><br> <br>Another controversial one? I don’t really know enough about Kiriko yet, but I don’t get friendly vibes from her. She seems a little too contrived - I know all [https://Overwatch2fans.com/ Overwatch 2 guide|https://overwatch2fans.com/] characters are created by a team of designers and developers who go through reams of concept art and try to hit the right demographic markets, but with Kiriko that feels especially blatant. She doesn’t strike me as having much of a persona at all, so middle of the list she g<br><br> <br>That’s an issue for another day though. Today, I want to focus on the Archives skins, particularly those of our queer characters, Soldier 76 and Tracer. The Archives event is running until April 27, and brings eight new skins to the game, each designed around a given character’s cultural history. Both Soldier 76 and Tracer are included in the event, but it’s extremely telling that neither of their cultural histories includes any reference to queerness. Soldier 76 is becoming Soldier 1776 which, I admit, is a good pun. The American soldier is donning the jacket of the Revolutionaries, these days probably best known from the musical Hamil<br><br> <br>They wouldn’t even be the exception to the rule, either. Mercy’s skin is based on the history of healers, taking inspiration from Florence Nightingale, while Zenyatta’s is a deep sea diver because… well, I’m not sure. It looks cool, I gu<br><br> <br>Mercy has become symbolic not just of the Support role in Overwatch but of what it means to be a healer in a video game. It stands to reason that she'd be near the top here, and she only misses out on top spot because she's too much of an ideal. She's the kind of friend who's very nice, very sweet, very polite, but who you can't help but feel bad around because of the emanating aura that she gives off. Mercy is just better than you. She sits at her oak kitchen table in her designer clothes, opens a bottle of wine and casually leaves it to breathe, then leans in with a smile and asks you what's wrong. You mumble something shyly until she strokes the back of your hand with her thumb and tells you that whatever it is, she's sure it will be alri<br><br> <br>Unfortunately, this will be the end of this stupid little series. Much like God of War, we're going for two and done rather than the full trilogy. There are far too many DPS heroes to rank and besides, what could I order them by? How much damage each of them could do to me with a punch to the face? It would be irrelevant anyway as I'd just keep letting my queen Mei whale on me for as long as she needed. If that's not the sign of someone in a deep emotional crisis, I don't know what is, so let's get on with the l<br><br> <br>There are two at-risk groups that loot boxes exploit: gamblers and collectors. By axing loot boxes, Overwatch has removed its hook from the first group while simultaneously doubling down on the second one. If you had a desperate need to collect every single skin in the game, you would have been able to do it for much cheaper in the old system. Even if you only want one specific skin for your favorite character, you’ll either have to pay $20 or grind out those weekly challenges and save up. It will only take you 32 weeks to earn enough Coins for one legendary s<br><br> <br>Zenyatta is a cold, unfeeling robot. He may offer some mystic advice that tries, in its own way, to be helpful, but I don't see much of it being any useful. At best you get a fortune cookie and at worst you get HAL. Bottom of the l<br><br> <br>Before you post this on your angry gamer subreddit, hear me out. I think paid video game loot boxes are vile. They are predatory in nature, designed to exploit players and obscure the real cost of in-game items. I think every country in the world should outlaw them, and I’m glad Overwatch got rid of them. At the same time, Overwatch 2’s monetization is terrible. In the transition to free-to-play, we lost the ability to earn things for free. Though I’m mostly positive on the gameplay changes, it’s hard to ignore that Overwatch 2’s progression is worse in almost every way. I don't love admitting it, but Overwatch was better off with loot bo<br><br> <br>It could be argued that Overwatch doesn’t need to waste time focusing on this stuff, pushing an "agenda" that simply takes away focus from actually playing the game. But it should, its queer characters deserve more than just a passing mention to keep us satisfied. Explore these stories, show that Overwatch is worthy of the awards and nominations it has received for doing the bare minimum for representation. Two cisgender white homosexuals feels like a sanitised definition of diversity. Where are the POC, transgender characters, and those who refuse to fit into neat little boxes? The universe is only growing with the coming sequel, and its grasp on representation should do so along with<br>