Blizzard ‘trying hard’ to add diversity to Overwatch

World of Warcraft and Hearthstone developer Blizzard has said that the latest character revealed for upcoming shooter Overwatch demonstrates an renewed commitment to diversity in games.

New character Zarya eschews many of the typical traps that female games characters fall victim to – such as unpractical armour designed purely to show off cleavage. Essentially she’s a regular multiplayer tank character in every way other than her gender.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of discussion among players about the need for diversity in video games,” the studio said, as reported by Kotaku. “That means a lot of things. They want to see gender diversity, they want to see racial diversity, they want to see diversity along the lines of what country people are from.

“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.”

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