Thirsty Overwatch fans are furious at the appearance of Tracer's butt in the upcoming sequel, with many insisting that the popular character's behind has been "nerfed".
Blizzard is no stranger to making major changes to some of its characters, of course. For entirely understandable reasons the studio made the decision to rename Jesse McCree to Cole Cassidy when it emerged his namesake was embroiled in the company's troubling sexual harassment lawsuit.
But why would Blizzard "nerf" Tracer's butt? And perhaps more importantly, did they actually make any changes to her appearance at all?
Towards the end of April a screenshot of Tracer from the Overwatch 2 beta started doing the rounds, and quickly went viral on Twitter.
The screenshot appears to show Tracer with a bit less of a butt (I hate myself for writing this) than perhaps fans are used to, and it wasn't long for critics to attack Blizzard for censoring the character.
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"This is the wrong kind of censorship," one user wrote. "Having a butt isn't sexual, and for the most part Tracer's design isn't sexualized. Making it smaller sends the wrong kind of message. If they wanted to "tone down" her design, they should have given her baggy athletic pants or something."
Except, as it turns out, nobody has done anything to Tracer's behind. It's simply a case of a less flattering angle in the viral screenshot, and a fanbase ready to create controversy at the drop of a hat.
“It’s a combination of the pose and the camera angle,” one Twitter responded. “People are creating artificial controversy.”
“Tracer has always had a small butt, I don’t know how the internet only noticed it now,” YouTuber Melonie Mac wrote. “I get the issue of taking curves away from female characters, but she never had them to begin with so I don’t see the issue.”
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My best guess? Some of you are getting the Tracer from the game mixed up with the Tracer you like to spend special alone time with on the internet.
Topics: Overwatch, Activision Blizzard