We’re just a few days away from the early-access launch of Overwatch 2, and the teams behind the game and the competitive Overwatch League associated with it are taking steps to ensure inclusivity in the community-based multiplayer title. As reported by NME, both Overwatch and the Overwatch League have announced the establishment of a joint venture named Calling All Heroes, which is an initiative to encourage gender equality across its servers.
The official announcement appeared Friday with the establishment of the official Calling All Heroes Website. As it only just launched, content on the site is sparse, so far, and the only other items listed are two of the program’s biggest projects.
The first of these projects is partnership with production company Raidiant to host a special tournament called the Calling All Heroes Challengers Cup, which is scheduled for this fall and winter. The tournament will run alongside, but will not replace, the Path to Pro series, and the joint team behind the tournament is encouraging people of “underrepresented genders” to participate. Players will be able to enroll in both the Challengers Cup and Path To Pro.
“It has been my personal and professional mission through Raidiant to ensure that everyone feels represented in esports,” Raidiant Co-Founder and Executive Producer Heather “sapphiRe” Garozzo says in a statement on the Website. “In addition to producing entertaining live broadcasts of the Challengers Cup, Raidiant will create compelling content featuring a number of the event’s competitors, telling their impressive stories and building a fandom for these deserving gamers.”
The other major item of note is the creation of Defense Matrix. Sharing the name of a special protective move used by series favorite D.Va, Blizzard Entertainment had announced this feature earlier in the week, saying it would be a multifaceted way to combat toxicity in the player community and crack down on cheating. This initiative includes the creation of temporary transcript logs of all voice chat used in matches. While it hasn’t announced the exact consequences for disruptive behavior, it can be assumed from Blizzard’s inclusion of Defense Matrix in the Calling All Heroes program that gender-based harassment of other players will be a key focus of this feature.
Overwatch 2 opens for early access on October 4 on current and last-generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Battle.net.
