Blizzard Addresses Why Overwatch Lacks Black Female Characters

BlizzCon is now over and fans of Blizzard's biggest franchises and while it may not have been what [...]

By Liana 'LiLi' Ruppert

BlizzCon is now over and fans of Blizzard's biggest franchises and while it may not have been what many were expecting, it was still a phenomenal time for fans of their FPS Overwatch! From a new animated short and a brand new hero, there's a lot to love but with SIX new heroes already confirmed to be on the way, the topic of who we will get was sure to come up.

We recently had a chance to sit down with the team behind Overwatch during this year's celebration to learn about the ambitious hero plans but it was actually Kotaku that dug deeper into character representation. With so many heroes in the game from all walks of life, religion, race, styles - Overwatch is more diverse than most. With incredible black heroes like Doomfist (anti-hero) and the always lovable Lucio, many were wondering why we haven't seen a black woman yet.

"I think if you look at the history of Overwatch, there's been such a wide variety of people that we've represented in the game," said Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan to the site. "We have no shortage of heroes that we're currently working on secretly back in Irvine. Right now I think the number's around six that we have in development. I don't think people are gonna be disappointed."

"I think there's... I don't want to say something for everyone, because six is not something for everyone," Kaplan added. "There's a lot more people who walk Planet Earth than that. But I don't think people will be disappointed. We have a lot of really cool, interesting characters that are gonna come out over the next few years."

With both Mercy and Ashe both having originally had much darker skin tones during concept stages, many players were quick to voice their concern of representation for their hero.

"We absolutely have intentions to make a really diverse cast," added Senior Software Engineer Julie Anne Brame. "But again, this came from cinematics, and she was just so special out of that wonderful cinematic. And it wasn't, like, out of all the things in the world to pick, we want to pick this particular character; it was 'Wow, that's a really special character that needs to come to life and really would contribute a lot to our universe.' I think that's what made Ashe stand out."

With so many heroes on the horizon, and the outpouring of fan feedback, it will be an incredibly interesting ride seeing the next few reveals!

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