Overwatch 2's social account on X recently surprised fans with a weird post all about Kiriko's new skin or, more specifically, her "grippers," and it's going down about as well as you'd imagine with the Overwatch 2 community.
"Yatagarasu Kiriko has GRIPPERS??" the official Overwatch 2 social account says. "Drop a 🦶 if you’re hyped for Kiriko’s new skin in Season 13." I actually thought that this was from a parody account before I took a closer look, which speaks volumes about how strange this post is.
The replies are full of players declaring this the "worst Overwatch post ever," while Twitch streamer Warn just asks, "Bro, you are on main???" But this isn't the only time the official social account has been weird online. Previously, in response to a player's fan art of Ramattra as a kitten, the social media account said: "purrs and rubs against your leg." No thank you.
Jokes involving Overwatch 2 heroes' feet have been a thing for years, dating back to the release of Sigma because he just floats around everywhere barefooted. Players had a laugh about the Tank's exposed digits, so much that it's become something of a recurring joke, albeit one that half the playerbase doesn't find funny. Since then, anytime a hero goes barefooted, players tend to meme on it in a similar way.
The problem is that jokes like this are only ever funny as slightly ironic shitposts, and anytime I see a corporation get involved, that image of Steve Buscemi saying, "How do you do, fellow kids?" in 30 Rock pops into my head like I've just been flashbanged.
Overwatch 2 also has a bad history when it comes to objectifying its female heroes. I still remember the dust-up over Blizzard modifying one of Tracer's victory poses that some complained was over-sexualized, which caused a surprising amount of chaos as players started yelling about censorship. Then, there was the fact that pretty much all the female heroes shared the same facial and body design in the first Overwatch, with some players pointing out that Brigitte had Mercy's face. All of this isn't even mentioning the copious amounts of NSFW fanart of Overwatch characters found online—sometimes, I think Rule 34 and Overwatch are part of a symbiotic relationship. So, posting a video of one of the female heroes' feet probably isn't the best direction to take things.
But this post just seems like the usual innocent attempt to score some funny points with the community. And it's worth just ignoring because Overwatch 2 Season 13 has a ton of new content to enjoy. There are map changes, a new scoreboard, hero changes (one of which took Sombra out to the woodshed), and a Junkenstein event that shows off an old PvE feature. But one of my favourite additions this season is all the incredible skins.
Blizzard has really stepped up its game over the last few seasons, both with battle pass and shop skins. We've had new mythic skins with particle elements like Widowmaker's mythic witch skin or Reaper's Anubis mythic skin, and this season is no different. Ana's bog witch skin is absolutely outstanding. But the best by far is the Yatagarasu Kiriko skin—it's beautiful and deserves more respect than a weirdly out-of-touch video of her feet.
