8 years later, Overwatch players have only just noticed a key costume detail on Tracer that's inexplicably missing from the sequel

Overwatch 2
(Image credit: Blizzard)

It's somehow been over eight years since Overwatch first released, but loads of first-person shooter fans are only just noticing a key costume detail on Tracer that's, for some reason, not been accounted for in Overwatch 2.

Even if you've been playing Overwatch since the start, you might have missed that those bulky bits on Tracer's forearms are actually gun holsters. It's more obvious when you slow footage of the game down – the Reddit post below showing her 'Finger Guns' emote displays it clearly. Her armor opens up, allowing her to store and retrieve her guns with a slick little animation. To be fair, it's a rather blink-and-you'll-miss-it feature, and it's gone completely unnoticed by many.

What happened to tracer's holsters in her forearms? from r/Overwatch

"Eight years playing this forsaken game and I just found that those things on Tracer's arms are holsters for her guns?!?" one Reddit user responds. Other veterans are in exact the same boat: "I never knew that and I've been playing since the very beginning," another says.

It's really neat, but as the Reddit post shows, while the animation is still sort of intact in Overwatch 2, even on her base skin the actual holsters are no longer there, so it just looks rather odd. Once you see it, you really can't unsee it – when she goes to put her guns away, they still swing down to enter her arms, but they just phase into her and disappear. She also now apparently has the power to pull her guns out of her flesh to get them out. 

"Every skin needed that added bulk for it to make sense but damn might as well remove the animation if you wont make skins around it anymore," one player argues.

This obviously isn't a game-breaking issue, even if it's a bit strange to look at. Given how few people actually knew Tracer had built-in arm gun holsters in the first place, though, it's hard to imagine there being much outrage about it going forward.

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Catherine Lewis
News Writer

I'm one of GamesRadar+'s news writers, who works alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.