I’ve been enthralled by it’s unique cast of characters. Each one has an interesting and colorful design, unique play-style and fleshed out backstory that I can’t help but be interested in them from a design standpoint. This expansive cast just got a bit bigger with the addition of the new tank: Orisa.
Described as an “anchor tank” on the Overwatch website, who protects her teammates with her Protective Barrier and her Fusion Driver main weapon possesses the most weapon range of any of the tank characters, as well as a high rate of fire and huge clip size. Her Halt ability launches a graviton charge which slows enemies and pulls them towards the explosion, and her Supercharger ability temporarily boosts ally damage.
In a developer update video, Jeff Kaplan explains, “We started to define Reinhardt, the term that we would use on the development team was an ‘anchor tank.’ With a properly positioned Reinhartd the team builds and positions around Reinhartd. Because he doesn’t have a lot of mobility abilites and because he has that protective barrier in front of him, you sort of know where to postion yourself and when the team is going to engage or disengage.” Kaplan adds, “wanted another tank that teams could build around or position around.”
Kaplan goes on to say, “Most of all we wanted to bring a new and exciting character to Overwatch. Not only does she fill a role that we thought was really needed. We also felt like Orisa was visually challenging, we often hear that when it comes to female characters, they tend to be more limited in their size and appearance where the male characters get these really big and challenging visual designs that are very exciting, and we’ve heard a lot of desire to have a very visually challenging female character.”
Orisa is currently available for testing on the Public Test Region. Kaplan thanked the Overwatch community and invited players to share their feedback on Orisa.