#Zarya's very good I played her for a while in OW1

[hellobiscuit]

A note on Biases, Tropes, and Stereotypes in Overwatch's character + skin design

Disclaimer that this isn't a proper thesis- there's no proposed solutions, and this is neither a condemnation nor a defense of the way this game handles any of these topics- these are just some things that were brought up in a discussion in a discord server i'm in. obviously many of these topics have been discussed in the larger overwatch community before, but some i haven't seen mentioned at all, so i wanted to spotlight some of them.

Also you may find parts of this discussion hard to follow if you don't play overwatch- i can't really do much about that without making this miserably long, and i'm NOT a good enough writer to justify dragging it on any worse than i alr will

Neglecting heroes with darker skin

specifically what began the conversation was it being pointed out how there's a correlation between skintone and how many skins a hero gets

for reference, the heroes added since overwatch 2, in order of release are: - Sojourn - black north american woman - Junker Queen - white australian woman - Kiriko - light-skinned asian woman - Ramattra - robot - Lifeweaver - brown asian man - Illari - brown south american woman - Mauga - brown pacific islander man - Venture - brown north american non-binary person - Juno - light-skinned asian woman - Hazard - white european man - Freja - white european woman - "Aqua" - light-skinned asian man

you'll have to excuse me for the way these characters are kind of broken down into these specific characteristics, but for the sake of what i'm discussing here, these are the traits that are relevant. Aqua is in quotes because as of writing this (may 15 2025) he has not been released yet, and therefore isn't in the skin discussion really, but he will be relevant LOL i prommy

anyways, specifically what prompted the discussion was that specifically kiriko and juno have gotten a LOT of amazing, detailed skins- both have gotten mythic skins already despite many beloved ow1 heroes not getting any. kiriko specifically has had 11 skins over the past 4 seasons, and juno already has 6 legendary skins (3 times as much as Venture, who's been out for nearly twice as long)

and while it's Arguably not fair to compare these supports to venture, who is a relatively niche dps pick, i do want to compare them to sojourn, who has been a relatively popular pick since her launch (which coincided with ow2's launch- her, kiriko, and junker queen were released simultaneously)- sojourn currently sits at 10 legendaries, while kiriko has 21.

for some ow1 heroes who have gotten a lot of LEGENDARY skins since ow2's launch, we also have mercy, widowmaker, and dva at 15 each, rein and soldier at 14, hanzo at 13, and genji, reaper, and tracer at 12

and on the other end of the spectrum, the heroes with the least legendary skins are doomfist, hog, bastion, and cassidy at 7, mauga and winston at 6, zarya at 5, wrecking ball, junkrat, and baptiste at 4- and again, Venture (while they've only been out for about half of ow2's life) only has 2 legendary skins

this data is from the document linked in this reddit post and isn't the full story or anything- there is other factors like, some of these skins are just recolors of existing skins, some heroes have also gotten more epic skins, there's more cosmetics than just skins, some designs are more difficult than others to make skins for, and the most obvious point which is that some heroes are just going to make more money than others, like the mercy mains are very clearly buying more cosmetics than say, bastion mains.

i do have a LOT more to get into about the skins and what standards a hero has to meet to become a Blizzard Skin Favorite, but i want to TRY to keep this organized LOL

all this to say, even without being given data, players have noticed which characters are the most popular- of the 9 heroes i mentioned with the most skins, only one has darker skin (reaper), and all the rest are white or very pale asian- of the 11 with the least, 3 are white, 2 are black, 1 is brown, 1 is a robot, and 2 are literally animals.

again, data is more complex than just what can be described using these numbers, but i am far from the first person to mention that it does feel like heroes with dark skin are being neglected in terms of cosmetics, even without numbers to back it up, and

just anecdotally, a lot of people have been Less Than Satisfied with a good number of the skins that these brown/black heroes have received- Especially the recolors, which brown/black heroes have seem to have gotten more of than other more "popular for skins" heroes (i am NOT running numbers on this, there's too many cosmetics for me to count them to take it with a grain of salt, BUT this has been community sentiment- lucio specifically comes up a lot wrt too many recolors)

this is sojourn's base ow2 design, an original legendary that was generally well-received, and then a recolor that is largely considered to be A Worse Version of the original

And one more thing wrt the idea of skin distribution is that, for some of these heroes (for example, venture who is non-binary!!) have not even had the chance to have good skins be released to Prove themselves as having a potentially dedicated fanbase who will buy their skins

Colorism in Hero Design

there has been this sort of trend where, a lot of heroes who are not white will be pale, even when there are a Lot of people of that ethnicity/race that are not.

i specifically think this is noteworthy in the context of the asian heroes- there are currently 9 heroes who are asian (i am counting unreleased "aqua" because we know his nationality and what he looks like- i am NOT counting echo because she is a robot)- of those, only two have brown skin, those being sym who is indian, and lifeweaver who is thai- the others are chinese, japanese, korean, vietnamese- i know already that many many people from china, japan, korea, and vietnam are pale, but ALSO many people from those countries do have darker skin and face really severe colorism, where pale is beautiful and skin bleaching is a common cosmetic practice.

during this part of the conversation, a few people who live in or are from south asia did express how they have noticed that most of the asian heroes are very pale, but they did also say that they appreciated that lifeweaver was designed to be brown even though he Could have been pale, and Especially appreciated that symmetra was designed with such dark skin.

i think that sym is especially notable too, because she's kind of an Icon(tm) within the community, like she has a really dedicated playerbase and a lot of people love her

but idk there are also plenty of people with brown skin in like, china, japan, korea, and there IS a chance to have some of those heroes from those places have that trait- the hero designers just are not taking that opportunity.

Another note on Colorism

this is another thing that i will not be pulling numbers for, but i have heard from a Few people i talk to that it feels like heroes with dark skin are far more likely to have cosmetics that give them an unnatural skintone, as compared to white heroes

some really random examples of what i mean

you'll have to excuse the shitty images for these ones, i don't actually own these skins >.< there are deff white heroes who also have unnatural skin tones for some cosmetics, BUT aside from torb (who is also skin-neglected), these white girlies all have a solid amount of other skins as well.

i will say regardless of if You think the numbers add up to it being problematic or not, the fact of the matter is that there are a good number of poc that i've seen express this sentiment that it feels like something that skin designers gravitate towards more with dark-skin heroes.

Overwatch is weird about Africa

idk how else to say this. one of the noteworthy features of overwatch at its launch was how diverse its cast is, in Several ways, but for this section i'm just gonna focus on how they're from all different countries- very few countries have multiple heroes from there, and generally fans look forward to the game adding new heroes from Their country. it is A Big Deal w the game.

but for some reason, the entire continent of africa is sooo neglected.

as far as african heroes, we have doomfist, who is from nigeria, and orisa who is a robot, and not even from a real place in africa? she's from numbani, which is a fictional city-state that was invented specifically for overwatch lore. there's over 50 countries in africa, and this game has representation for One of them.

it is fairly likely, from the little nose-ing around that i've done, that overwatch adds more representation for countries/cultures with a bigger playerbase within the game, which is reasonable, but i think it is a bit difficult to look at the african representation in the game and not be a little ?? about it

Asian Women with Colorful Hair

when i brought this up, a lot of people had never heard of it, but it is definitely a thing in overwatch hero design, and honestly it does kind of also apply to the men BUT i feel like i have to note that this trope is about WOMEN specifically because the expectations for asian women is different than for men

juno and kiriko both have unnatural hair- they are also both very mischievous characters who are Different(tm) like kiriko is a Rebel and juno is literally a martian- then you have mei who has natural hair, very quiet, polite, etc, or symmetra who is extremely proper and a perfectionist (noteworthy: her design has changed in ow2 to showcase how she has become less rigid in her personality not by dying her hair, but by giving her a loose strand that hangs over her forehead)- dva also has natural hair and while she is silly, she is also notably a workaholic who does not really ever go against the status quo.

among the men, we don't know much about aqua's personality (again, unreleased, but we know what he looks like), BUT hanzo who has natural hair is Extremely proper, and yaps all the time about honor- he does not have a rebellious bone in his body, but genji has a notable character arc where he was a very rebellious teen/young adult and had green hair then, but after ditching that life, it goes black. lifeweaver is also defined by his rebellion, and has white hair.

i'm SUPER not the expert on this, i only have what i've read from others on social media and from articles online >.<

Slim-Thick Body (and body types in general)

in addition to diversity wrt nationality, one thing overwatch rly had going for it was how diverse the bodies were- from like, a mechanical perspective, this is great because if you have a game where different characters have different abilities, it's helpful for players to recognize them at a glance, and it's EASY to tell apart characters when they have very different statures

even with my ridiculous skins on, you can tell these characters apart at a glance

but a lot of people have noted lately that a lot of the heroes look VERY similar, ESPECIALLY the women- one noteworthy example was the second lesserafim collab where a lot of peoples reaction to it was "who are these characters...?"

i mean... mercy has wings... if you Happened to notice the jetpack, you'd recognize juno... but is that... sombra or illari...? is one of these kiriko? or maybe dva? or maybe that new girl freja?

a lot of people credit overwatch's same-face syndrome which is deff an issue in several cases, but i've opted to talk about the bodies because i think even when overwatch manages to hit the mark on diverse faces for its women, it completely misses wrt the bodies every time.

and even when it hits the mark with the bodies... it STILL somehow manages to do something insane to make them skinny

lest anyone forgot pajamei- that second image isn't even how they actually fixed it, it's a fanmade edit- the skin still looks like that in the live game ;-;

poor brig was also done dirty- this was her when we first saw her, and then her most recent skin which everyone has been dunking on because for NO reason they made her very skinny (i also have her regular ow2 model for comparison- the legs are especially egregious)

but i'm getting off track- this is about how almost all of the women in the game have the exact same body type- small waist and curvy hips/thighs (and additionally, in overwatch, long legs)- this has been called "slim-thick" and it's the kind of body that people get BBLs or takes ozempic for- it is a body type that very few people have naturally (and, notably, most of the people who do have it naturally are black women who were mocked for Years for their "fat asses," but that's a whole other topic), but everyone wants it, and for some reason every woman in gaming has it.

overwatch does have a few women who don't have this body type- for example:

zarya who was introduced specifically to have more body diversity in overwatch! and who has gotten only 4 legendaries since ow2's launch, 2 of which are recolors of ow1 skins... and notably None of them have been cute girlypop or high-concept skins that are Really exciting to get (the skin i'm using is brand new this season and is unironically the most exciting skin she has)

we also have junker queen

who also has a smaller waist and big thighs but is at least muscular which is new!

besides that, we have mei who often reads as having a more "fat" body in-game despite the skin designers often trying to make her skinnier, and brig is also seemingly meant to be a bit more stocky/muscular, but has the same issue as mei where skins often ignore this

and i feel i should mention that the other characters don't all have the Exact Same Body- like, you do get a good bit of variation- sojourn and moira for example do have very obviously different bodies

but so many characters have such similar proportions that it sort of undercuts the diversity by sort of suggesting that this body is the default for women, that all other bodies are slight deviations of:

yes i bought the stupid lesserafim skins are you disappointed in me

even echo has a robo-bbl with robo-tits

it's worth noting as well, that the characters that fit into this "default" body type are the ones who get the most skins- i don't have the source for this but i swear i remember in a reddit ama or tweet or something where a hero designer said that dva is the hardest to design skins for because of her mech- despite that, she is near the top of the list for most skins in ow2- she's ALSO not insanely popular (look at queue times for diff roles...) but she is a cute girl with a slim-thick body type.

and if you look more closely at that chart of skin distributions i sent earlier, you can see this corroborated there as well- aside from race, body shape is the other big indicator of who gets more or fewer skins

btw i did google search to try to find the name of this body type and the top results were half either articles on how to get this body type through diet and exercise (which... is not going to work for 99% of people because this is, again, NOT a common body type), or plastic surgeons encouraging people to get it. all of them were referring to this body type as the "ideal" for women.

Final Notes

to reiterate, i'm not trying to take a hard stance on these things or defend OR condemn these things- some of these things, i don't even know how many people would consider it to be a problem, so i CERTAINLY don't want people hailing it as proof that there's a serious issue in the game.

i am not nearly as insane about this game as i used to be, so i'm deff not up to date on a lot of the lore, and i cannot keep track of all these skins- i'm also only one guy, didn't go to college for this stuff, i could be wrong about any of this

my ONLY goal here is to bring up that some of these things have been discussed, to offer a few examples, and to encourage people to think about these topics for themselves

[emile-hides]

*pokes head in* Hello do you have any opinions about Zarya or Moira to share possibly

I have BOTH but sense I fear long posts I'll just do Zarya for now...

One aspect about them I love

She's so nice!! I know that sounds really boring but I think about it all the time because like! How easy is it to make Big Russian Lady also big scary big serious. Zarya is super kind, she's even more friendly. I think about her interaction with Alejandra from Searching a lot. It's clear she's a very patient, nurturing person to me. Kind and careful.

One aspect I wish more people understood about them

I feel like out of all the character's, Zarya's the one the fandom has the most universal take on. I don't see a lot of variation in how she's written between fanon content, so I don't have anything to put here.

Headcanons i have about this character

Lesbian queen we love her

A really big fan of cute things, has plushes and cute tea sets. Likes to show them off

She bakes!! Cakes and cookies and brownies she's a real pro

But she can't cook actual food very well.

One character I love seeing them interact with

I'm so incredibly Biased but Lynx!!! Lynx17 her sassy Gay They/Them!!! NBLM WLW Solidarity!!!

It's in part just because I love Lynx17, but also because I love seeing Zarya soften up at an Omnic, they are her friend, human, Omnic, or otherwise. I'd love to see more of them in the future breaking down Zarya's biased, and also bullying her as she deserves. They're a good dynamic; Smarmy Twink and Himbo Lesbian.

One character I wish they would interact with/interact with more

Firm believer in Zarya/Roadhog besties!! They are Big Buffs with a love of Soft Cute Things and Omnic Trauma and I just think!! They should hang out.

It goes hard with my age regressor Roadhog headcanon as well I think she'd make a very good caregiver for him on top of just. Being a very good, healthy relationship for him to have.

Lynx17 fixes her Omnic Bias, she fixes Roadhog's Omnic Bias, Roadhog fixes Junkrat's Omnic Bias, and then Junkrat and Lynx17 make out really hard. Is this too much to ask for?

Headcanons I have that involve them with other characters

Well I just said my biggest one with her being Regressed Mako's main CG. I want to see her carrying him on her hip with one arm like it's no big deal. It's what he deserves.

I think she gets along really well with Cassidy, in a "This is my weird little brother" kind of way? She picks him up like a kitten and pats his back too hard when laughing at his jokes

Brigette looks up to her (has a littol crush on her?) and they work out together!! Zarya also likes to watch Brigette work sometimes

She's oddly soft to Bastion. She refuses to comment on it, but it's because he acts a lot like her baby niece back home

She's the only one (other than Junkrat) to laugh at Winston's puns genuinely, though a handful of them go over her head

Reinhardt likes to challenge her to arm wrestling matches, he's yet to win one, but they've called a draw a handful of times

I think out of everyone she'd get along the worst with Torbjorn. Not for anything he does, just because she can't take him very seriously.