About

Tracer is the call sign for Lena Oxton, a playable Offense hero in the multiplayer first-person shooter Overwatch. The British former fighter pilot uses a protoype device known as the chronal accelerator, which she can use to travel back in time or teleport in front of her.

Origin

Following the cancellation of Blizzard's MMO Titan in 2014, the character Tracer originally originally designed for Titan became the first hero character during the initial development of Overwatch. During Blizzcon 2014, Tracer was introduced as one of the first 12 Overwatch characters.

Spread

On November 7th, 2014, a page for Tracer was created on the Gamepedia^[1] and Wikia^[7] Overwatch wiki sites. On July 27th, 2015, the Team-Overwatch.com YouTube channel uploaded an animated video explaining Tracer's origin story (shown below).

On March 25th, 2016, Blizzard forum user Fipps started a discussion thread in Overwatch’s beta feedback page asserting that one of Tracer's victory poses objectified her as a female sex symbol. After hundreds chimed in with their opinion on the debate, a Blizzard staff member replied that the pose would be replaced and apologized for any offense. Over the next two weeks, many criticized Blizzard for succumbing to the demands, until the company released a revamped pose inspired by a classic pin-up poster (shown below).

On April 19th, Blizzard released a promotional video announcing Tracer as a playable character in the MOBA game Heroes of the Storm (shown below). On May 24th, Overwatch was officially released, including Tracer as one of the original playable characters.

"Reflections" Comic

On December 20th, 2016, Blizzard released a comic titled "Reflections,"^[4] in which Tracer is shown kissing another woman on a couch in an apartment (shown below). That day, the comic was submitted to the /r/Overwatch^[5] subreddit, where it gained over 14,700 votes (90% upvoted) and 6,500 comments.

Meanwhile, Twitter created a Moments^[6] page titled "Tracer is Overwatch's first LGBT character," collecting various Twitter reactions to the comic. In the coming days, several YouTubers published reactions to the comic strip, including Hammeh (shown below, left) and Tyrodin (shown below, right). Meanwhile, other YouTubers posted mashups of Tracer animations with iDubbbz' "I'm Gay" video (shown below, bottom).

Search Interest

External References