Blizzard has just released the origin story for Overwatch’s newest hero, the robot Echo who is described by Blizzard as being an “evolutionary robot programmed with a rapidly adapting artificial intelligence”. And no, she is in no way related to Amazon Echo.
As Blizzard tweeted, Echo represents the “cutting edge of technology” and was created by Dr Mina Liao, one of the six founding members of the international task force Overwatch, and also the one responsible for building the omnic robots. Against her wishes, she was forced to watch as her creations took part in a global war, resulting in the Omnic crisis.
To atone for her actions Dr Liao joined Overwatch and ended up creative Echo.
A highly sophisticated omnic AI, Echo has picked up on Dr Liao’s mannerisms, speech patterns and even her mission. Just like her name suggest, she is a literal echo of her creator, who seemed to have died in some sort of attack on her lab.
“She created me: her promise, her legacy, her Echo,” the omnic says toward the end of her origin video.
Echo was previously teased in previous Overwatch short films and many were excited to see her finally making her debut.
Echo’s release comes after an eight-month window, which is slightly longer than the game’s typical quarterly releases. The last hero to join the game’s roster was Sigma, back in July 2019.
Blizzard should hopefully be releasing more details on Echo’s powers and abilities soon. It will be interesting to see how she interacts with the rest of the heroes in Overwatch and how her abilities will complement the others in-game.
Though recently it has been announced that Michael Chu’s, Overwatch’s lead writer, is no longer with Blizzard. It still remains to be seen how this will affect Overwatch’s upcoming lore.
Whether or not Echo will carry over to Overwatch 2, remains to be seen, though she is present in the upcoming game’s promotional posters and artwork.
Germaine is a fun-sized introvert who loves nothing better than sleeping in on rainy days. She can be found reading fanfiction and manga while still waiting for her Hogwarts acceptance letter. It’ll come eventually.
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