New ‘Overwatch’ Hero Revealed As Support Sniper Ana, Not Sombra
Blizzard has teased a new addition to Overwatch and finally revealed her Tuesday on the game’s official website. She’s not quite the new character many in the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC shooter’s community were expecting, but she does fill a somewhat unique role.
Many thought Blizzard would reveal Sombra as the new Overwatch character while others suspected it would be Pharah’s mother, Ana Amari. The latter turns out to be to be the case and she is packing the Biotic Sniper Rifle plus the ability to leave enemies counting sheep.
As a support character, Ana’s Biotic Rifle shoots darts that can heal allies or deal ongoing damage to enemies. The fact she can do this from a sniper role grants her a wider view of the battlefield than other support players with similar abilities such as Zenyatta.
Ana also packs a Biotic Grenade that can deal damage to enemies or heal allies in its small area of effect. Additionally, enemies will not be able to be healed by their allies for a brief period, whereas Ana’s teammates will receive a boost from all healing sources while it is active.
The Overwatch gameplay trailer for Ana shows her knocking out McCree just as he activates his super ability, High Noon. This comes courtesy via her Sleep Dart, which knocks enemies out for a period of time or until they start taking damage. This will be an effective counter against opposing players, and it will be interesting to see how this will be deployed.
The final ability Ana brings to the table is called Nano Boost. She can hit one of her allies with this to make them faster, able to deal more damage, and take less damage. This should be most effective as a combo move with tank and assault class characters.
Ana’s origin story is somewhat tragic, as shared in a YouTube video from Blizzard. She was one of the founding members of Overwatch and served as second in command to James Morrison (aka Soldier 76). However, a fateful encounter with Widowmaker during a hostage rescue mission left her without her right eye and with growing doubts about her life spent in combat. The growing unrest in the world made Ana realize that she could no longer sit on the sidelines. She soon realized she needed to help defend her home country, Egypt.
She does not join the ranks of villains or heroes in Overwatch, though. Ana is a neutral bounty hunter that bolsters the ranks of the Support class. She is rated as a highly difficult character to play, so it will be interesting to see how the game’s community takes to her when she is released.
An exact release date for Ana has not been announced yet. Blizzard Entertainment will be at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 21 to host a panel titled “Behind the Scenes of Overwatch’s Newest Hero.” Here is the official description of the panel.
“Blizzard developers James Waugh (director of story & creative development), Michael Chu (senior designer, Overwatch), and Arnold Tsang (assistant art director, Overwatch) present a behind-the-scenes look into the creative process of developing the art, design, and story for Overwatch’s newest hero. Q&A session moderated by Kim Phan (senior manager, esports).”
As previously covered by the Inquisitr, all maps and heroes that are added to Overwatch will be free. The game supports all DLC additions through in-game microtransactions for loot crates, which randomly reward character skins, voice lines, icons, and more.
“We have ideas for additional maps and heroes that we’d like to add to the game,” game director Jeff Kaplan explained at the time. “So we thought about this and we decided the best way to add them to the game is to patch them in as free content and not as DLC. Hopefully that alleviates some concern that people have.”
“We’re excited. Some of these heroes we’ve event hinted at. For those of you are paying attention to our maps, there’s some Easter Eggs,” he said, sending fans scurrying for clues on future heroes.
[Image via Blizzard Entertainment]
