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The "Z" from Zarya's Arctic and Siberian Front skins has been removed from the game
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Took me ages to even find the Z on the old ones, I don't think such a tiny detail will be missed.
Sorry about that I should have probably zoomed in on it more. Here's a better close up of the image.
Took me longer than I'll admit to find it lol. One of those cases where a red circle would have been unironically helpful.
Wow. It still took me a minute to find it even with a zoomed in image.
i still cant find it...
Enhance
left collarbone area
It's on her chest piece, on the pec area :)
It's okay, you can see it if you know what to look for.
Same!
If I had a nickel for every time a Zarya skin had a symbol removed because of people doing crimes in the real world, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it’s happened twice.
edit: the other is the Alien skin
What’s the other one?
The recolor
Darn, cant wait to play arya
edit: wtf, i got a 1.6k upvote on a gamer-dad joke
A girl has no name.
Arya rework!
Basically spy from TF2... invis & change faces
Let's call her Aryan! ...wait
I never knew that Z existed
So er.. call me ignorant, but whats the significance of the Z and of removing it? I thought Z stood for Zarya and nothing else?
Its a Russian themed skin and the Russians units invading and committing literal warcrimes are tagging their gear with a Z and spraying it on walls.
Its a poor coincidence that her name started with Z, but its a minor detail to remove to prevent her been associated with such criminals
Yeah that IS an unfortunate coincidence.. thanks for the info though.. I didnt know that part :/
It's like when the cartoon series Archer had a fictional spy agency called ISIS way before the real life ISIS came about. Then when the real ISIS was formed and started murdering their way across Iraq and Syria, the show changed the name of their spy agency because life sucks sometimes.
I feel worse for the goddess, and any work that wants to include her.
There was also a mobile based payment service called Isis that, ah...rebranded quickly.
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Ignore this guy, one look at his profile and he's defending russias actions, clearly a bot
Alright, now that really explains why they would go and remove something as tiny as this
Here I was wondering "...what's the whole point of taking out the Z?..."
It has basically started transforming into the Russian equivalent of the swastika. I really wish we didn't have to repeat nazi Era facism...
I mean zarya seems like the kinda gal to commit war crimes
Against Omnics.
I thought that Zarya was bad guy initially, but after reading the newest comics she is actually very sweet and left Russia cause she wanted not only to protect her family, but as many people she could. I mean she even disobeyed orders to retreat cause she wanted to stay to protect her family so much 😢
At this point Blizzard are like bloodhounds sniffing out potential controversy.
Tbf, they can’t afford any of them now
It's what any major corporation is doing, avoiding bad PR. Nintendo delayed Advance Wars for the very same reason lol
They certainly don't need any more of it to deal with.
don't worry they will change the name in a minute too if we insist
is it bad that by the end of this whole war i feel like the letter Z will be somehow considered Taboo?
Whew, I would have confused them and wanted to start a firestorm on social media. Disaster averted.
No it’s not it’s just the letter Russians put to identify each other lol
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I literally live in Russia. "Z" is everywhere. "Zа победу". It's used as a main pro-Russian symbol. It's on the fucking bus windows here, dude. "Z" is definitely a Russian thing at the moment.
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Z is military propaganda of Russia’s army at the moment. They paint their tanks with Z in order to identify each other.
Zarya is a tank
Oh I did not know that.. thanks for the info O_o
On Instagram, the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) posted on 3 March that the "Z" symbol is an abbreviation of the phrase "for victory" (Russian: за победу, romanized: za pobedu), while the "V" symbol stands for "Our strength is in truth" (Russian: сила в правде, romanized: sila v pravde) and "The task will be completed" (Russian: задача будет выполнена, romanized: zadacha budet vypolnena).[26][27][28] The MoD later suggested alternative meanings for "Z", including "For peace" (Russian: за мир, romanized: za mir), "For truth" (Russian: за правду, romanized: za pravdu), and the letter Z inside the English words demilitarization and denazification, which Russian President Vladimir Putin has asserted to be the purpose of the invasion.[29][30] Another interpretation for "Z" is the Russian word for west (Russian: запад, romanized: zapad), to designate the Western Military District or west-bound infantry, or more generally to underline the Kremlin's imperial ambitions, with the "V" symbol similarly standing for the word for east (Russian: восток, romanized: vostok).[31][32][33] This term was used in the joint 2021 Zapad exercise [ru; uk; pl] between Belarus and Russia before the invasion.[citation needed]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_(military_symbol)#:~:text=On%20Instagram%2C%20the%20Russian%20Ministry,and%20%22The%20task%20will%20be
Tl:dr Z Symbol is the new swastika.
Russia commiting warcrimes and genocide in Ukraine. They should remove anything Russian ingame imho. Just make Zarya Ukrainian or something.
?? Why would they change her ethnicity because of what her country's government is doing? Should they change every Chinese character's ethnicity to filipino or some shit
Because she's a soldier for that government.
Changing mei to be Nepalese or Taiwanese would be a nice statement yes.
Except it wouldn't be a nice statement, it'd be stupid. Not every Chinese person is a POS because of the actions of their government. Same for Russian people.
If we had to change every nationality that has commited warcrimes, we would have what? Bastion? Hammond and Winston?
In ideology maybe, but initionally Z was West military region (Zapandniy voenniy okrug) and V East military region (Vostochniy voenniy okrug). After war started propaganda started using this letters as symbol.
They should paint their tanks with "I" which stands for "Idi Nahui" and f off...
russia is officially cancelled
For those having difficulties where the "Z" is here you go
I was looking at the top for a Z...I'm so dumb..
If it helps I did the same thing after I zoomed in to find it. Took me way too long to double check the words.
Legend, was getting annoyed at myself and had to check it wasn’t posted April 1st
never even knew the z was there in the old ones and I've played this game for years lol
It’s ok , I’ll still main Enyatta even if they patched out his Z
Lol I dunno why youre getting downvoted.. that was a good joke :'D
Thanks lol , ig nobody likes dad jokes anymore.
what Z? i done see one
Here you go
It's swastika 2022 edition, so it was obvious Blizz will remove it.
It is literally such a small detail, but I bet at least 15% of the community will whine about it.
"But how can I sexually objectify her now!?"
To anyone saying this is virtue signalling or insignificant go listen to the BBC for 20 minutes and hear one of a thousand stories of a mother crying because her son was shot in the head bringing home potatoes for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, then hearing her say how she had to bury her own son in her garden to make sure the dogs didn’t eat him. True story btw
It's insignificant because it's not helping anyone. There is no tangible difference being made by removing a letter that is barely visible. Terrible things are happening, I agree, but if boasting about removing something unimportant isn't virtue-signalling, I don't know what is.
Edit: fine, not boasting about it but it's still unimportant
Boasting? Where did overwatch boast? Someone found the change and posted it, nothing official came from blizzard from what I can see other than maybe a patch note
Wow very brave how politically correct blizzard is, I wonder what their views on Hong Kong
Yeaaaaa probably a smart move from the dev team
Can somebody explain why the Z was removed?? Saw it was due to “current international events”, but that doesn’t really narrow it down.
What else could the Z possibly mean besides Zarya???
Russians are basically using 'Z' like a propaganda symbol to support the war.
Aaah! Makes much more sense now.
Can definitely see why they would want that gone, at least for now.
Sadly probably forever, but hopefully they can come up with a different logo for her
Personally, with how minor that detail was… I don’t see a need for anything else to be added in its place. I think the cosmetics still look fine without.
I'm happy with her flexing bicep as her logo. Zarya has got guns I fucking envy.
Well, it’s the symbol of Ukrainian ethnocide and it is already being banned in civilized countries alongside with the original swastika.
Think of it like not putting a swastika on a German character.
Yeaaah. Might definitely want to avoid that one.
Haven't you seen the news in the past couple months? It's pretty big stuff
Don’t typically keep up with the news, only once in a while. But, even then, I feel I should’ve known about this by now. I’m typically not that behind.
Once in* a while
Once and a while would mean "I only did it once, but it was for a significant amount of time".
Thank you, stranger from reddit!!
I make too many typos.
I'm just really shocked that theirs people that don't know about the war in Ukraine.
Lmao, I’m not THAT detached. Obviously aware of the war going on in Ukraine. Just didn’t know about “Z” being a form of propaganda.
Okay that's a BIG jump to assume they haven't heard of the Russian invasion of Ukraine simply because they don't know Russians are using the letter 'Z' as a way to show support lmfao
Where is it?
Right here
Good
What zs
This one
AHAH WOW
You can’t say they don’t listen to the fans.
The letter Z because her name starts with a Z has nothing to do with current events, the character lives in a fictional world, blows my mind that blizzard is so paranoid over a skin.
I still can't blame them for it, honestly. Is it a coincidence? Of course, but sometimes the real world just sucks, plus it probably didn't take long to remove so they just went ahead and did it
Blizzard literally renamed a character because of a guy being bad irl, what did you expect.
Blizzard is really paranoid these days. I'm not sure how many in the community even knew about that Z let alone who would complain about it.
Better safe then sorry. Alot of Europeans know.
They probably removed it of their own volition
it's ridiculously unnecessary tbh
Removing Z from alphabet when?
Russian forces: "alright let's pack it up boys we have to surrender"
The last thing real world events and people should be concerned with are super old cosmetics in a cartoony hero shooter
This reeks of the same kinda outrage people (probably trolls) were expressing over police Dva and SWAT Brig during the BLM riots
Except a full invasion by a nuclear power, UNP5 whilst commiting war crimes is a bit more deserving of attention than BLM.
I agree though, I had to spend ages finding the Z 😂
W-why
Glad to see that Blizzard is more involved into fixing such small details for politics purposes than doing actual updates.
Meaningless virtue signal
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how
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shit man just ban russians from playing the game and let Zarya be Zarya
What Z?
Slava Ukraini
Zarya is actually voiced by a Ukrainian
Wooooo loving the dislikes from Russian bots
Slava Ukraini
This is where the Z is and Dolya Gavanski (Zarya's VA) is actually Bulgarian not Ukrainian.
Why did they have to? I know it's the Russian military symbol but like... That's part of zaryas character?? The symbol doesn't represent the current war its just people are dumb asses and decided that the letter z cannot be ANYWHERE or else it means pro Russia. Also, zarya Is probably going to be pro Russia given her character and her plot. It doesn't matter if 1 of 32 characters has 1 skin with a Z because it matches the characters personality anyway. I mean props to the team for working on these little details while ow2 comes closer but still, the skin should have kept it as it is part of the skin, it makes sense to be on the skin as it fits with zaryas character and it doesn't represent the current war- it represents the Russian military which zarya is a part of. Not everything had to be about the current events and not everything needs to be shown as "omg blizzard supports Russia in current events"
How do you feel about swastika?
It's not a swastica. Simple as that. The swastica was used by Hitler in WW2. This was already used by the Russian government and this is not WW3 this is one extremely small barely known country being attacked.
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Cough. Cough. I'm not American and I'm damn happy I'm not American.
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The reason they removed this to begin with is due to real world reasons which Russian tanks have been painting a Z on them so they can identify each other. Also, not sure if you realize the Overwatch 2 Beta is around the corner and they have been focusing on that which is why they released the Anniversary Remix event just to keep players occupied while they wait which if you want more details about it suggest you read this post.
I mean you can still argue it didn't need to be removed, it was purely coincidental. You know why was it originally the Latin "Z" anyway. Maybe they could add it back with Cyrillic "З".
Wow, maybe should remove Zarya entirely since she us russian military bruh
Just switch her story so she's from Ukrain instead of Russia.
Russian people are not the problem. Putin and his gang of war criminals are the problem.
Looking at the polls and how much the Russian people support Putin, they are part of the problem. Not individual Russians but Russia as a whole has a big political problem.
While we're at it why not change the ethnicity of every character from a nation that has ever been in a war...
Theres war and then theres and active genocide...
pretending that the USA, UK, France, China, Japan, Germany (to name but a few off the top of my head) didn't commit faaaaar worse genocide betrays a disgusting ignorance of recent history
I’m not quite sure you understand genocide. Both sides have committed war crimes.
Yeah, in serve of russian army? That doesn’t sound right
I wonder whether they will remove the orisa cleaning spray.ive seen some people put it on the payload as a joke recently.
If the amount of time that went into making this game stay PC was put into content, we’d have slightly more content.
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It’s relevant to current international events you must be living under a rock.
Oh I get it now, very interesting. I wonder what Zelenskyy would have to say about this
Lmfao yeah this isn't making any difference. It just furthers armchair activism. Doing this doesn't affect anyone. Might as well ban the letter Z and then I'm sure elenskyy would be proud of us 🦅😊
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ah yes, what a nice way to make people like Americans more. Remove all representation of other nations, only Americans are allowed to be warmongers!
People seemed to have failed at recognising the sarcasm
This is an overwatch sub, what do you expect lmao
Make so it looks like she's from Ukraine and I'm fine with it. Don't need the Russians represented at this point in my opinion.
Texture broke and shows only black?
No, this was likely intentional due to what's going on in the real world right now.
Why the Z tho? its not R for russian
Russian tanks have been painting a Z on them so they can identify each other that's why they removed it.
Oh ok didnt know that
Apparently Russians are using "Z" as propaganda
That too