Overwatch introduces Venture — its first non-binary hero
During Blizzcon’s 2023 opening ceremony, Activision Blizzard announced that there would be three new Overwatch 2 heroes coming to the game, with one being Venture, a non-binary hero with a massive drill.
The other two were Mauga, a new tank hero with links to Talon and everyone’s favourite healer, Baptiste, as well as a hero known solely as Space Ranger. While Mauga is coming sometime soon, both Venture and Space Ranger are planned to launch in 2024.
The team at Overwatch has stated before that they were “actively discussing” adding trans representation into the hero-shooter. Speaking to Dexerto, senior narrative designer Jen Stacey kept the reveal of said characters vague. “I can’t talk too much about our future development plans for any of our heroes. Definitely know that’s something we think about and talk about.”
And as it turns out, a trans hero was in the works with Venture. Though we know very little about them, what we do know is that they are a DPS hero, and they go by they/them pronouns — which was confirmed by Overwatch 2’s technical artist, Ana Martínez. Hopefully, we’ll get more information about Venture sometime in the future.
Alongside Pharah, Tracer, Baptiste, Soldier: 76, and Lifeweaver, Overwatch has a hero for every LGBTQ+ player. Though plenty diverse, there’s no doubt some fans will wonder whether these characters will get any meaningful and authentic stories in-game, as well as from comic books and other novels. After all, it’s ‘easy’ to create a character to tick a checkbox, but to add real meaning is another thing entirely.
However, as Stacey mentioned, the desire to include LGBTQ+ characters comes from wanting to tell an adventure, a story. “No hero that we’re creating in Overwatch that’s upcoming is created just to check a box. We’re creating them to tell a story.”
Currently, all Overwatch fans can do is wait for Venture to arrive in Season 10 next year.
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