Last year during BlizzCon 2014, Blizzard unveiled a new game called Overwatch. This is a first-person game and what made it interesting was how Blizzard demonstrated their awareness of the gaming industry’s landscape by not developing oversexualized female characters. However it seems that despite their attempts, there were still some who felt it wasn’t good enough.
Well Blizzard has since introduced a new character to the game in the form of Zarya. As you can see in the gameplay preview above, Zarya does not look like your typical female character. Her proportions can hardly be called slim and her outfit is not overly revealing, something that Blizzard is hoping will appease the critics.
In an interview with Kotaku, Blizzard was quoted as saying, “There is also talk about diversity in different body types in that not everybody wants to have the exact same body type always represented. And we just want you to know that we’re listening and we’re trying hard and we hope Zarya is a step in the right direction.”
This addresses one of the issues critics had with the characters in the game where the male characters had a variety of body types and shapes, ranging from tall and lean to short and stocky, versus the female characters who had pretty much one look to them – “long legged, slender, mostly sexualized armour, high heels, lack of pants,” according to Anita Sarkeesian.