Blizzard expands Overwatch 2 Pride celebration following criticism for excluding some countries

Overwatch 2’s Pride celebration, which began on June 1, has received a steady stream of negative feedback on social media because of a precautionary measure in which Blizzard did not enable the Pride event in many Eastern European countries because of anti-LGBTQ+ laws that exist in many of those areas.

OW2 game director Aaron Keller tweeted today, however, that the developer team is activating the event in a couple of countries that previously did not have access to the Pride content. As of now, players in Poland and Romania will be able to play on the Pride celebration version of the hybrid map Midtown and get all of the player icons and name cards that display pride for the LGBTQ+ community.

“We are excited to expand all of the new Pride cosmetics and Midtown update to players in Poland & Romania,” Keller said. “Thank you to those players for their patience and feedback. We’ll continue working to expand representation both in and out of OW2!”

Related: Overwatch 2 Pride month event: All icons, name cards, and sprays

Blizzard kicked off Pride month with a digital short story that revealed two heroes as being a part of the LGBTQ+ community. While many fans have regularly speculated about Pharah and Baptiste’s sexualities, the story confirmed in canon that Pharah is a lesbian and Baptiste is bisexual.

To further the celebration of Pride and inclusivity, Blizzard created player icons and name cards to display pride for a number of different segments of the LGBTQ+ community as well as some general pride cosmetics. All cosmetics are automatically added to players’ accounts.

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