Diversity in Overwatch

Now, today I wanted to go into something a little bit different. That's right, as you read from the title, today's post revolves around diversity. Specifically, diversity in one of my favorite first-person shooters to come out in the last year, "Overwatch". This game is an amazing first-person team based shooter that doesn't really change much in the terms of team based shooters. It doesn't break the mold, in fact it fits inside it perfectly, but that's not a bad thing. In fact, it's awesome. All and all it's just a really good game developed by the wonderful people over at Blizzard. Where two teams of six face off against each other to claim an objective or payload.

Now if you have never played Overwatch or gotten into the series at all, then you might be asking "What does this game have to do with diversity?" and I'll say "everything". (Note: I know that there are plenty of other games out there that do an okay job of expressing diversity, but I know this game the best and for a blog that revolves around the first-person aesthetic, I kind of put myself into a corner here.) As of right now Overwatch has a total of 24 playable characters, each with their own weapons, skill, and abilities. More importantly though, they are different in terms of race, age, gender, and size. You got guys and gals, thin and thick people, young and old people, human and non-human, and all in a variety of different races and nationalities. This game really breaks the mold of random white guys fighting against each other in shooters, which you see a lot of in games nowadays.

Besides that, the game also goes into discrimination territory too. The Overwatch universe is set within a world where people don't judge you on the color of your skin. They've grown past that and have bettered themselves from it, creating a more just and peaceful society. The advancement of technology grew so great and fast, it went to the point where the creation of artificial intelligence was created and robots pretty much became living creatures with their own thoughts and feelings. Unfortunately, though humans and machines fought and a war was started. Even after the war ended and peace was achieved, people had a harsh view on the machines from then on. I don't really see this in many games, as much as this one, especially shooters for that matter. 

Each character comes from a different background that people can relate to in some way shape or form. Because of that, Overwatch has become a widely known and very popular video game that people can love not only for the great game play, but for its diverse cast of characters set in a world of heroes.

What do any of you think about this? Really, there's not much to go over, it's just a simple topic that I thought was interesting and one that the developers over at Blizzard did really well. Tell me some more games that played the diversity card well, or ones that played it bad.