The world of Overwatch has, to some degree, always been a bit more compelling than the game that inhabits it. Even people who never play the game are familiar with its characters, and its bright vision of an optimistic tech-driven future feels equal parts MCU and Star Trek. Oh, and everyone is super hot.

Perhaps that's why a dating sim featuring Overwatch characters isn't just a logical choice, but an inevitability.

As part of Blizzard's new, more aggressive content release plan with Overwatch 2, this week the company is rolling out Loverwatch, a standalone game that lets the player attempt to romance their choice of two of the series's most popular characters: Mercy and Genji.

Mercy is an angelic overachieving scientist-slash-healer and Genji is a brooding half-cyborg ninja that won't stay still long enough to get healed. You, the player, get to choose which of them you would like to embarrassingly try to flirt with. (In hindsight, a romance story starring the two of them trying to date each other would also be hilarious.)

While players continue to wait for the promised PvE story elements, it's a tantalizing glimpse into a (strictly non-canon, the game is insistent on pointing out) world that has a broad appeal beyond the crowd of online shooter enthusiasts.

Mild spoilers for Loverwatch to follow. The game is about a 30-minute experience, so it's worth playing yourself before you read on.

While discussing the idea of an Overwatch dating sim with coworkers and friends who were fans of the series, there were two main questions that hovered over the experience. First, how would the game handle the possibility of queer relationships? It's easy to look at the simple choices of Mercy or Genji as a form of dressed-up “Man or woman?” selection. But would the game accommodate players who aren't making that choice from a heterosexual perspective?

The second big question I was asked was, “Do they get to kiss???”

Surprisingly, the answer to both of these questions was intertwined—and to rip the Band-Aid off now, no, the characters don't kiss. And there's a reason for that. As senior narrative designer at Blizzard Miranda Moyer (who wrote the Genji storyline) told WIRED, “An actual design philosophy that we went into this game with was making it open to as many people as possible.”

“That’s why the whole structure of this dating sim is you play as yourself,” added narrative designer Kyungseo Min, who wrote the Mercy storyline. In both stories, the player gets to flirt, have awkward conversations, and get to know more (non-canonical!) things about the characters they're trying to romance.