This Pride Month, Overwatch 2 Made Good On A Years-Old Promise
I’ve been playing Overwatch since 2019. I finally jumped into Blizzard’s hero shooter after the release of Bastet, a short story following the medic sniper Ana and old man vigilante Jack “Soldier: 76” Morrison, which confirmed the broody ex-Overwatch leader was once in a long-time relationship with a man named Vincent, but the two had long since split. Soldier’s devotion to Overwatch’s cause strained their connection, and eventually, Vincent married and found the life he wanted. At the time, Blizzard came under a bit of fire for sequestering this lore drop in a short story that most of Overwatch’s player base would never see. For years, it felt like Blizzard’s shooter existed in a space of plausible deniability, where it had queer characters but any sign of those identities was stashed away where bigots could ignore it. That all changed in 2023 when the game began an annual Pride Month event celebrating its queer heroes, and this year, it finally made good on a promise it made to Soldier: 76 fans six years ago. – Kenneth Shepard Read More
