Key foods
- Blizzard faced backlash on Twitter for using a character's legs to promote a new skin.
- Despite this strange tweet, Blizzard may have addressed the long-running debate about the character's leg.
Video game advertising used to be the Wild West with shock value and overt sexuality at the forefront. Things have evolved in the 21st century, from shocking to downright weird.
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Overwatch 2 wants to bring back 6v6, but why does it stop there?
If we're going to make Overwatch 2 the original Overwatch, I'd like to see a lot of changes.
However, while things have changed, Blizzard seems to have missed the memo and has been criticized for using a character's leg to promote Overwatch 2's new skin.
“Yatagarasu Kiriko has Grippers???”
Tweeted from the official Overwatch Twitter account, Team Blizzard decided to promote a new skin for Yatagarasu Kiriko using “grippers,” which is another term for feet. The tweet tells players to drop a foot emoji if they're hyped for Kiriko's new skin in season 13.
The marketing team knew the tweet would generate buzz and sent it out at 1:30am ET/10:30pm PT. And that's exactly what it did, garnering over 1,300 comments within the first hour of posting.
Many of Activision Blizzard's comments call the account “weird,” with dozens more telling the account to “delete this now.” One commenter summed up the whole situation best, saying, “They tweeted this last night for a reason. Tryna capitalize on a bad market.”
There's perhaps one situation that could save Blizzard from any backlash: The company is simply using this tweet to address a debate that's been going on for years. A quick Google search for “Kiriko feet” (sorry) reveals countless discussions on Reddit and Blizzard forums about the character's dogs, with no explanation of what they actually look like.
This tweet doesn't make Overwatch any less weird, but at least there's a reason behind it.
And now it's time to delete my browser history.
The sequel to Blizzard's popular team-based shooter, Overwatch 2 features a roster of over 35 fighters and over 20 maps. The feature has team sizes reduced to five, with the aim of creating faster and more action-oriented matches, while adding PvE elements to the options available.