surveillance 2 may be a sequel, but it seems like it loves cop skins as much as the original game. A brand new pack called Constable Tracer recently appeared in the in-game shop, which puts Tracer in a goofy British cop outfit, complete with a absurd hat and twirled mustache. The $10 pack also includes a police badge gun tag and a spray depicting Constable Tracer coming out of a police box.
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Constable Tracer marks the third time Blizzard has released a police-themed skin over watch Characters. An Officer D.Va skin was introduced in 2017, dressing the 17-year-old in a more casual cop uniform and transforming her mech into a walking police car with sirens. While it’s certainly unmusical, it pales in comparison to what they came up with next.
In 2019 as part of its annual over watch Anniversary Event, Blizzard introduced the Skin Riot Police Brigitte. Yes, in May 2019, when America anticipated clear and consistent evidence that police brutality was overwhelmingly affecting communities of color, and witnessed how protests against that brutality often met with increasingly militarized police forces, Blizzard thought it would be a good idea to provide one Character with a shield is a riot police skin. Uff.
Kotaku reached out to Blizzard for comment on the ideology behind this latest cop skin.
The in-game cop skins feel like Blizzard is saying the quiet part very, very loudly. over watch Characters are essentially cops who were forced to become vigilantes after their organization was disbanded after some of their ethically questionable and legally shaky tactics were investigated. In the game’s lore, this organization was formed to fight what is known as the Omnic Crisis, in which the robots that ran robot factories went rogue and started producing evil omnics that continued killing rampages.
On her first mission, Tracer was dispatched to put down an omnic uprising led by the Null Sector (a revolutionary omnic group often referred to as terrorists) in King’s Row, London. The uprising erupted after omnics were denied basic human rights and forced to live in squalor beneath the noble city. Overwatch was banned from intervening in the uprising, but did so anyway. Interestingly, the Tracer Cop skin doesn’t come long before that surveillance 2 adds his newest character, Rammatra, to the game – who is the leader of the same terrorist organization that Tracer was sent to stop. I wonder how he would feel if he saw tracers in a cop skin?
If you are new surveillance 2 player or even an original over watch Players who skipped the PvE events and opening cinematic, you probably don’t know that many characters in the game were once members of a global police force with virtually unlimited rule. That’s why this Tracer skin is so incredibly frustrating: Blizzard might choose to keep the “cop” bit quiet, but seems determined to yell it from the rooftops of King’s Row — you know, the place where which the cops were sent to violently put down a riot.
And while it’s cute to see Constable Tracer (canonically a lesbian) doing a bit of gender-changing, Blizzard could achieve the same effect by giving her a Freddie Mercury-inspired skin. It would go very well with it Moira’s Bowie look, and it wouldn’t have any of the problematic effects that come with adding another police-themed cosmetic to the game. Interesting, over watch hasn’t dropped a cop skin for the most suitable character yet: Roadhog.
