You all remember how people were a little bit miffed about the introduction of Wrecking Ball/Hammond into the Overwatch lineup, right? To summarize very quickly, some players were a bit miffed that the game still doesn’t feature a black woman in its cast (a demographic that makes up at least 7% of the US population) but does feature a hamster in a mech suit (a demographic that makes up at least 0% of the US population). It feels like director Jeff Kaplan was trying to mollify the people annoyed by this by mentioning that the game does have a black lady in its lore… but that was somewhat undercut by further stating that she’s not the next hero. And sure, she’s your off-camera guide and narrator in the Storm Rising archives co-op mission this month, but that’s not the same as being playable (although it might be a sign of hope that they’ve got a voice actor on speed dial)!
Sojourn, who is hinted at in early trailers, has unclear abilities, history, and motives; all that’s known is that she’s part of the large pool of planned heroes that the developers have had since before launch, which also includes our hamster-ball-with-guns friend. But we know that Sojourn isn’t next on the list (although we don’t know who is), and if you were annoyed that the team found the time to make a hamster ball a character before a black woman, you are probably not made less annoyed by learning that the team already had the concepts for both but just put the hamster ball higher on the priority list.
