Weird female hero Character/Personality Design choices?

General Discussion
1

Hello everyone,

i recently came back to overwatch after stopping shortly after Sombra got released, and as it goes i did a it of research about what people say about the game nowadays. I’m not very interested in competitve play so many concerns don’t affect me and i’m having a blast playing my fav heroes.

Before you read on please note that i think everyone can like and play whatever they want, and that’s how it should be. This critique post is aimed at the Character Designers at Blizzard, not at the players.

However there’s something that’s a little weird i noticed in Overwatch character designs, namely the fact that there’s a number of some extraordinarily to quite manly female chars (extreme being Zarya who not only looks and acts like a man, but even is openly into women on top of that, Brigitte being a bulky heavy armor shield and morningstar wearing hulk of a woman based on the viking Shieldmaiden myth (yes it’s a myth) which appeases those who like the idea of a woman being a capable front line soldier who protects her fellow men and women with her physical strength, Tracer on the verge of looking like a boy and again is into women just like a man generally speaking is. Pharah’s design is also quite manly yet compared to the other ones more passable.

BUT! There are female characters which are well done and i can relate to a lot, namely Mercy, Ana, Sombra, Mei, basically all but the ones i first brought up. They don’t seem grotesque at all and their abilites, personality, outfit and fighting style are much more believable and immersive, and just feel more authentic overall. They are lovely and cool characters, and i wish that they would set the example of how to design a female hero.

The reason i bring this up, is because on the other hand (and i’m happy it is this way), is that there’s no overly feminine male character heroes in this game. All of them, even the hamster genius, are very authentically delivered and designed, and overall seem especially well fitted for male players.
In fact i think all of them are badass in their own way, and empathize on the best aspects of their personality and traits, which is great and the best case scenario i’d like to think. Even an extremely obese guy like Roadhog is very likeable and a fun character to play and fight against, because the design overall is high quality and makes sense.

Which leaves me with the question: Why does Blizzard make these overly manly female characters, which are as a girl, to put it as nicely as i can, so unrelatable and off looking to the point where i don’t even wanna play them even though their playstyle itself isn’t bad?

I mean sure, maybe there’s guys who like that sort of character, and i suppose most are men that play this game, but personally i like to play female characters every now and again for immersion aside from my mains like D.Va, Widow and Mercy, and seeing this weird character design trend for female characters from Blizzard makes me worried enough about future new characters that i’m writing this post to have a chance they hear what i’d like to play as a girl and why. Obviously it’s not a huge deal, and overall i care most about having fun with the game, but it’s an issue that impacts my overall enjoyment of the game enough to make this big post.

TL; DR: If characters like the very masculine Zarya are not supposed to be appealing for the female audience of the game, so be it, but if they are, i say thanks but no thanks. I’d much rather have characters along the lines of Ana, Mercy, Sombra and Mei for a more overall enjoyable, immersive game experience, because they are much more relatable, immersive and authentically delivered in their design.

Thanks for reading, see ya in game.

2

They started to create more female heroes with varying shapes and personalities due to criticism, especially by feminists (it was constructive though)

However, the only actual manly female hero is Zarya. Brigitte is still obviously a girl in a heavy armor, which still puts an emphasis on her femininity by making her armor hourglass shaped.

What you experience is completely normal. After all, your personality affects your choice of character.

This video of game theory uses an own survey with over half a million of participants. They concluded that your personal traits, like your gender and nationality, do have an impact on what character you choose. Women tend to pick characters who are “traditionally feminine” instead of chracacters who don’t look like that.

This is all due to the similarity bias. Your preference on a character depends on how similar they are to you, too. It has the most impact when choosing your hero for the first time. For example, I have a heavy similarity bias in terms of personality of a hero. Being goofy and optimistic myself, Tracer with her uplifting attitude intruiged me first. Of course, you can disregard that similarity bias and focus on gameplay only.

The character designers don’t create heroes outside of the “traditionally feminine” asthetic to please the female audience. They do because they can now. They got more creative liberties to create more interesting heroes and, let me tell you, they did a great job. Moira is, without a doubt, one of the best examples on how to use gender itself to present a character. After all, you actually couldn’t present the same personality as well as if Moira was a Man.

3

Just my 2 cents to the topic.

I go for the gameplay first, that i think tracer is cute just adds a extra to the enjoyment.

I like the visual appearance of mercy as example too, but her playstile can’t get me in.

I like sniper, and widows looks, but I don’t like her attitude. I still enjoy her a lot.

From what I saw in blizzards early character concepts, they where already great variations between the characters which is important.
Ofc we could have 6 male soldiers like soldier/mccree
And 6 model girls.

But having some slim girls, some covered in armor, some really strong. Same for the males
Some animals, robots etc.

Always better, they shouldn’t all look the same.
(i tried to keep it short)

4

So most players are indeed male and so it makes perfectly sense, that the gaming industry focuses und pleasing their male costumers first.

The newer characters are hot and beautiful- nice and pleasing to look at. And there is nothing wrong with that. It’s only a game, nothing else.
But also a lot of male characters are pleasing to look at.

And also- Ashe looks nothing like Brig and Brig doesn’t look like Orisa, Ana or Zarya. Every of those characters is unique and does not really look similar like the others.
Same goes with the male characters.

Only because we don’t get a female dolphin, bird or whatever, it doesn’t mean that the characters are looking like the same.

5

I smell sexist in this topic…

Who cares of the girls in overwatch are tomboy-ish, not every female has to be fkn girly and cute.

2 Likes
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There is nothing sexist in this topic. The OTP just tells their preferences, not that less feminine heroes are worse than anyone else.

Please think before your speak.

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I’m a bi girl and I think most female character designs are alright. Just because you, OP, don’t find them appealing and interesting, doesn’t mean no one else does. Also Tracer is a skinny young girl who’s butt is bubblier than any real life woman I ever saw and a lot of guys think she’s hot, how does she look like a boy lol?

1 Like
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I’m now just going with assuming that those guys preferred BIIIG bobies. Long hair and maybe a huge place to sit on.
Tracer doesn’t have huuuge bobies. Nor does she have a crazy big thing to sit on. Nor does she have long hair.

Anything below these “norms” will be called a guy.
Mostly i guess bc of the not big enough bobies.

I personally like tracer especially bc of how she is.
She’s not a cold blood like widow.
And she doesn’t have these “huge things” as they are not a standard for women.

9

Sure it’s sexist, why is it wrong to be a strong female? I’m aromantic and asexual BUT i think it’s way hotter if a girl would act more like a male. Not that typical girly girl who acts like a typical girl does.

Sure the OP can have that opinion but it sure is sexist when you say that you can’t play a character because she’s more manly and unrelateable. That’s like saying i can’t play a character because he or she isn’t trans because i am an no hero is.

Like “i can’t play overwatch because i’m trans and can’t relate to any hero because they aren’t trans”

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And yet there isn’t any male heroes I would call feminine.

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Look at the world - there are people of all shapes, sizes, colours, gender identities, sexual orientation, nationalities, handedness, etc around. The world is diverse, so it only makes sense to have a hero based game likewise diverse. OW is fairly non-fantastic (robots are ok, Winston was always accepted and Hammond already prompted a lot of outcries for being too whacky) - so there are no elves, gnomes, demons, dwarves, etc, meaning if you want everyone to keep all the heroes apart - both in the game and out of it - you have to diversify.

a) in game: When you see the sillhouette of Hog, you know it’s Hog. With Rein, you know it’s Rein, etc. Symm, Mercy, Widow, Ashe - you can still tell, but mostly due to their posture. In other words: we alread have an abundance of the standard attractive, tall, slender woman in the game. Add a few more and it gets weird. You mentioned Mei as a positive - yeah, she’s one way to go: shorter, chubbier.
Second aspect in game is the size of the hit box. Brig is a front liner, she needs a hefty hit box, Pharah is already benefiting from the third dimension, she needs to be bulkier as well. Zarya as a tank needs the larger hit box almost by definition.

b) out of game: The reason I started playing the game is Ana. I connected with her through her personality as it is shown, I liked her kit and her style. Ana was quite literally the reason I bought the game - and many other people feel that way. You need that one hero that just suits you to hook you in (insert Roadhog pun here). The more diverse the cast, the easier it is to be hooked in. Some might identify with Tracer, some might find her cute, some might just like her kit. Some might identify with Zarya, some might find her attractive, some might just like her kit. Same goes for every character, it’s just a wider and wider net.
Also, let’s think about MOBAs with 100+ heroes: they are all wildly diverse and generally benefit from the high fantasy elements and the more prevalent presentation. We’re approaching hero 30 now, some day we’ll hit 50 or even 100. You don’t want to get lost in 100 heroes, they need to be kept apart as much as possible.

c) And then there’s… also the fact that characters via their design are never just a mix-and-match. They have personalities, backstories, kits, roles, hit boxes, relationships (romantic and otherwise), etc - they are not eye candy for you, personally. Mercy wears a bunch of make up, because it fits her personality. Brig wears heavy armor, because that goes with being a squire. Pharah isn’t flying around in a bikini, because bikinis are notorious for not supporting jet packs as well. That was btw why people back in the day didn’t like Tracer’s sexualized victory pose while they accepted Widow’s similar ones. It’s not about “being SJW”, it’s not about “shoving diversity down people’s throats”, it’s about creating a diverse cast that should be distinct and memorable. And 4 characters that are only seperated by the colour of their hair and skin isn’t memorable.

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Weird female characters? It’s the opposite, we need to go weirder. There was a prototype female character called Recluse with an attack called “Mouth Beam”.

Now imagine a half woman-half robot with the lower part being spider legs, and she can shoot a god damn mouth laser beam.

That’s what we need. Give us Recluse, Jeff.

1 Like
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It is not sexist because her argument was:

I don’t like less feminine heroes because I can’t identify with them.

Not…

I don’t like less femine heroes because they are worse than actual women.

Counter question: The survey showed that more women tend to play feminine heroes than men. Does that mean that men are sexist?

Sorry, but there is a flaw in your logic.

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Playing the advocate here for a second (for my more measured and thought out response look a bit above): the OP also basically said “Why are there characters in the game I can neither identify with nor find them attractive.” or “Why are there women in the game I don’t find attractive.” Now I know you well enough to anticipate you calling that “reductio ad absurdum”, but the exact quote was

It’s not a far leap to “The only place for women in video games is for me to objectify them.” or “Women are only relatable when I find them attractive.” (let’s note that “relatable” is missuses in here, because it’s not about relating at all), and that’s pretty sexist.

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This seems reasonable. Wouldn’t that contradict the survey though?

If what you say is true, that playing a hero due to similarity bias is an objectification and thus sexist, wouldn’t this imply that the majority of women are sexist because they prefer to play highly feminine women?

If the answer is no, then is the person really sexist or is the viewpoint of sexism just flawed?

You said yourself that this thought pattern is “not a far leap” but if you

Wouldn’t you have noticed that this logical flaw makes the thought pattern is actually a much bigger leap than it seems?

16

The fact that these things bother you is a problem with you, and not the design of the characters. A manly woman is just as good character design as a feminine woman, which is just as good character design as a masculine man, which is just as good character design as a feminine woman.

You being unable to relate to a character is entirely your problem. I am not a gorilla and yet I am able to play/relate to Winston just fine. This is potentially because I’m interested in writing and roleplaying, but still, it shouldn’t be a difficult skill to learn how to relate to others. It’s called empathy. Can you empathise with another entity that is different to yourself?

When a man bleeds, he feels pain, just as you feel pain when you bleed, just as a gorilla feels pain when it bleeds. You can apply this to masculine females. When Zarya bleeds, she feels pain. When Zarya gets hungry, she probably wants to eat. When she gets tired, she probably wants to sleep. Zarya is meant to be a human being, and I assume that you are also a human being, so you actually have a lot in common. Her being masculine means… what? She can lift more than you? Okay, can you not empathise with that? Imagine yourself, but you’re stronger… and Russian?

Anyway, that’s roleplay. Some people like to roleplay. It’s why I’m able to enjoy a game like GTA San Andreas. When I play that game, I’m roleplaying as a gangster American character in the ghetto in the 80s. I’m about as far removed from being CJ in real life as you can imagine, and yet I’m still able to relate to him and play as him. When CJ gets shot, it hurts… I’ve never been shot in real life, but I can still empathise with the pain he’s feeling. When CJ feels angry when Big Smoke betrays him, I can empathise with how he’s feeling.

I do not need CJ to be a pasty white girl sitting at a computer. I need CJ to be a pistol packing gangsta.

I don’t need OW heroes to represent me. I need them to be unique, interesting characters. Mechanics aside, I can enjoy playing as a psycho Australian clown with a peg leg just as much as I can enjoy playing an angelic medic lady.

If you’re unable to do that, then the problem is yours and yours alone. I want the designers to make what they please. If you can only play attractive feminine women, well… there’s already plenty of those to pick from.

Basically, there’s pretty much no wrong answers when it comes to character design. If they made a three armed blob monster character, it could still be cool. It might not suit your preference, but I can bet my bottom dollar, there would be some people who would say mr three armed blob monster was their favourite character in all of OW, and thus the character design would be a success.

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It’s still sexist because she can’t play the heroes even if they are more manly, like who tf cares just play the heroes ffs.

Yes men are sexist too if that’s the case, femeninity and masculine shouldn’t matter in a game. You are not aupposed to choose a hero because of their looks and body type.

It’s the abilites and teamplay that matters.

1 Like
18

It’s not sexist. It’s just erroneous to suggest that having masculine females is somehow bad character design. It can be bad character design in her opinion, because pretty much anything can be an opinion. “The grass is blue” is an opinion, but it’s also an erroneous opinion. That’s my opinion, anyway. :sweat_smile:

Also: :rofl:

19

Are you sure you think your claim is true? After all, you are accusing the majority of the world, both men and women (not non-binary), even left winged and progressive people, to be sexist.

Disregarding the sexism part, the argument of the op can be used against herself. She doesn’t like less feminine heroes just öike others don’t like more feminine heroes. Otherwise, female feminists complained about the lacking body variations before Zarya and Mei got introduced.

In the end, it’s only a matter of opinions. Luckily, Overwatch’s hero roster is so diverse that there is something for everyone.