Ever since the long reveal for Overwatch’s 23d hero Sombra, which involved a convoluted ARG that have left many fans slightly disappointed- despite their efforts of following the clues and solving the puzzles, the Mexican hacker was still staged for her reveal at last year’s Blizzcon. But now, we have start seeing hints and clues to what could possibly be another new hero, one of the two Blizzard has confirmed to be working on currently.
And it is not necessarily Doomfist. Though the idea of a strong tank possibly voiced by Hollywood actor Terry Crews has once been refuted indirectly. Fans haven’t backed down from this, speculating that Doomfist could still be the other hero, the 25th, that Blizzard is working.
The current speculation train starts from this Overwatch blog post, which is written as a news piece. It reveals the young inventor Efi Oladele who wants to make security robots, ” something that can keep us safe, like the new OR15s “. This piece led to a strong indication that the next character is supposedly a large spider tank based on an alleged leaker at 4chan- though Youtuber and Overwatch lore analyser Hammeh refutes the claim that it’s a strong possibility. Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan refuted this as well in his recent DICE summit talk when a concept art depicting a spider tank was shown.
The next bit of clues come recently. This image above shows that the Numbani airport has been attacked. While no civilians were harmed, the OR15 robots that were guarding the area was badly damaged. Interestingly, the photo credit goes back to Efi Oladele, who did mentioned in the original blog post she was about to travel by plane.
In the current PTR, the Numbani map has also sported a few changes. Doomfist’s gauntlet is gone, a detail that was leaked out early by dataminers. A few more cosmetic changes were spotted by Overbuff.
Doomfist gone! Airport destroyed!
Numbani on the PTR has had some changes. pic.twitter.com/RaftD2EnrC
— Overbuff (@Overbuff) February 24, 2017
Changes in maps are not new- seasonal events saw major changes to the aesthetics of several maps, but small tweaks like we see here usually is done to tie in with animated shorts. This could hint to a new short coming soon- possibly to tie in with a new hero reveal like we saw with Sombra.
Will we see a new hero soon? Or Blizzard has other plans before the heroes are ready to be released? Let’s hope it won’t be as long of a wait this time.