Blizzard revealed their first downloadable hero for Overwatch: Ana.
Ana is a Support-class sniper and is the mother of fellow hero Pharah. Her main weapon is the Biotic Rifle, which she can use to heal allies and damage enemies from a distance. She is also equipped with a Biotic Grenade that can negate enemies’ healing abilities; as well as a Sleep Dart that temporarily renders enemies unconscious. Blizzard showcases her abilities in a new trailer:
Blizzard also released a trailer surrounding Ana’s origins, showcasing a happy, bright past with her daughter, Pharah, and also goes into how she gained her cool eye-patch:
Blizzard did not announce a release date for Ana, but her and all future additional characters coming to Overwatch will be free for all players.
In addition, Overwatch’s recently launched Competitive Play will be going through some changes. In an interview with Gamespot, Principal Designer Scott Mercer revealed that they plan to implement a one-hero limit, preventing teams from containing multiple copies of the same character.
“The big thing for Competitive Play is we’re going to turn on one-hero limit, so players will not be able to stack more than one of the same hero within a Competitive match. It’s not going to affect Quick Play at all, but it is something we’re going to turn on for Competitive.”
Blizzard did not announce a date for the hero change. Future changes to Competitive Play include the replacement of Sudden Death with ties, which will happen in Season 2.
Overwatch has been a massive critical and financial success since its launch on PS4, Xbox One, and PC; selling over 7 million copies worldwide in the first 2 weeks of release and earning a 91 on metacritic, becoming one of the highest rated games of the year. Ana, and the changes to Competitive Mode, are available now for public testing on PC via the PTR Server.
