Is Widowmaker blue or purple?

Amélie Lacroix—that’s Widowmaker before she was Widowmaker—hasn’t always been an emotionless sniper. Overwatch bad guys Talon captured Amélie as a way to get at her husband, Gérard Lacroix—an Overwatch agent.

She underwent neural reconditioning after being kidnapped by Talon. That’s when she killed her husband in his sleep. The next step in her Talon transformation was to alter her physiology. By slowing her heart, Widowaker became unable to feel human emotions. Her skin turned blue, too, according to lore. But there’s really just one small discrepancy here: The tone of her skin isn’t explicitly blue.

And that’s where this debate begins. Official Overwatch lore calls the color of her skin blue, but the actual color can be interpreted as either blue or purple. We’ve been debating this internally at Dot Esports for about a week now. We’re split right down the middle. Some of us call it purple, the others—who are wrong—call it blue.

In our search for answers, we reached out to Overwatch lead writer Michael Chu. He opted to remain impartial in this debate, however.

Chu pointed us toward Widowmaker’s official Overwatch reference sheet, which revealed her skin color value as #b1b4db. There’s certainly blue hues that are brought out when compared to her bodysuit, but let’s take a closer look at the color on its own.

Many would call this shade lilac, periwinkle, or lavender. But one thing is for certain: It’s a shade of purple. But don’t let Team Purple’s opinion sway you. We also brought in an unbiased professional color designer into this debate. A color designer at a footwear company, our source has no connection to Overwatch or esports in general. When asked how she’d classify this color, she responded with one word: Purple.

We will admit, however, that in certain lighting, Widowmaker’s purple skin can appear more blue. But that doesn’t make her definitively blue, because she’s purple. Words matter, friends. The phrase “It’s just a matter of semantics” is ultimately meaningless, because semantics, too, matter. A reckless use of words—blue in Widowmaker’s lore used to scientifically wedge her skin color as cyanosis—is the real issue here. And it’s ripping Dot Esports apart.

We were a family, before: Blizzard’s recklessness has torn us apart.