Review: 75970 Tracer vs. Widowmaker

I love Overwatch. One of the best games I played in 2018. At the same time, I hated the sets when the were initially announced. Unfinished box art, clunky guns, lazy minifigures – my hopes weren’t set high.

This set kinda helped. A little bit.

The biggest pull for these Overwatch sets are the minifigs. Overwatch, the game, is 100% about the characters. These sets, as with pretty much all licensed sets, are the same. Even the title of the set – it isn’t Payload Battle or something stereotypically Lego like that. It’s Tracer vs. Widowmaker. The set is an afterthought.

Which is a shame, because I really like the little model. It’s a solid, tight build that feels good to hold.

Not much in the way of play features, other than being able to remove two 2×3 tiles to fit a minifigure in. According to the back of the instructions, you’ll be able to connect the ship to the larger ship from 75975 Watchpoint: Gibraltar. That isn’t quite enough to convince me to buy the overpriced 73-dollar set.

The two prints in this set. I had a short moment of “oh, that’s nice” upon building the health pack, and promptly forgot about it.

As I said, Tracer and Widowmaker (hence the name) are the main feature here. But Widowmaker has one of my problems with most of Overwatch’s figures (with one exception). She’s instantly recognizable as the character from the game, and she has a nice quality headpiece, a double-feature head, and fairly accurate colors (it would be interesting to see how Lego would do a shiny minifig). Despite all that, however, something about her is just off. I don’t know what it is exactly. I’ll do an article on it once I figure it all out.

Her giant, oversized gun doesn’t help, either. She can’t even hold it in two hands to the side.

Tracer, on the other hand, I absolutely adore. She’s simple enough, full of character, she’s just cool to look at.

Especially attaching this little blue dash thing to her back.

Her guns work for me as well. They’re oversized in a cute Lego way, not in an oh-my-god-this-gun-is-impossibly-large way. Tracer’s design in Overwatch is ace, and it’s completely epitomized here.

CONCLUSION

All in all, you’re going to buy this set for the minifigs. The Overwatch line has 12 of the current 29 heroes (and 2 Bastion models, which I don’t know if they count). I haven’t heard any plans about a new line of Overwatch sets, so this may be all we’re getting. If you’re in it for the minifigs, then you already have it. My recommendation won’t do anything for you.