Overwatch features a diverse roster of playable heroes hailing from all over the globe, like Tank hero Zarya, who comes from Russia. In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Blizzard has made some slight tweaks to two of Zarya's skins in Overwatch, though it's likely that most fans would never have noticed a difference.
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has marked its vehicles with the letter "Z," with the "Z" itself becoming a controversial symbol in the process, as some have been using it to show their support for the invasion. By coincidence, there were two Zarya skins in Overwatch the featured a "Z" on them, but they have since been altered.
This was spotted by Reddit user Proto_VI, who pointed out that Blizzard removed the "Z" from Zarya's Arctic and Siberian Front skins as of the latest update. Blizzard did not draw attention to this change and failed to mention it in the latest patch notes. It should be noted that the "Z" symbol on the Zarya skins pre-date the Russian invasion of Ukraine by years, and was likely just meant to represent Zarya's name. Regardless, it's highly unlikely that the skins will be changed back. It's a very small detail anyway and as previously stated, it's unlikely that the vast majority of Overwatch fans would have ever noticed anyway.
This is far from the first time that Overwatch has engaged in a sort of self-censorship. The biggest example of this is when Blizzard made the decision to rename Overwatch Damage hero Jesse McCree to Cole Cassidy. Far more than simply altering skins, this change took months and required Blizzard to change voice lines, cosmetics, and more to completely erase "McCree" from the hero-shooter.
Whereas the changes to the Zarya skins came about in response to world events, the drastic changes made to McCree were due to internal issues at Blizzard. Lawsuits were filed against the company alleging misconduct by various employees and executives. This included former Blizzard developer Jesse McCree, who the Overwatch character McCree was named after. Blizzard not only scrubbed Overwatch clean of any McCree references, but also promised to avoid naming future characters after real-world people in response to the situation.
It's unlikely that there will be any additional changes to Overwatch in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. However, it will be interesting to see if the conflict has any impact on the upcoming Overwatch 2 in terms of references made to Russia in voice lines, sprays, etc.
Overwatch is out now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
