It’s been a long time coming for the Overwatch community, but the largely-rumoured hero Echo may finally be brought into the game – or so a new leaked image of what appears to be Overwatch 2 suggests, at least.
First revealed at BlizzCon 2018 with the McCree-centric animation short “Reunion”, Echo was largely believed to be the 32nd hero, despite not being formally announced as such. As it turns out, the speculation might not actually be too far off the mark, with the omnic character appearing beside the likes of Reinhardt, Genji, Tracer, Mercy, Brigette, and Winston in an artwork embedded in Blizzard’s host server. It has since been removed, however.
While Echo’s role in the Overwatch universe has yet to be confirmed, there have been hints pointing to her major involvement with the franchise’s ongoing lore. Apart from appearing in early concept art prior to the game’s release, game director Jeff Kaplan has also confirmed that she will play a big role in the grand scheme of things.
Some of the other characters, meanwhile, seem to have taken on a slightly different look as well. Mei now sports longer hair, Tracer has swapped out her old design for a pair of fully-orange, yellow-accented pants, and Genji is no longer, uh, naked, with a hoodie and pants over his cybernetic build.
It’s easy to attribute these changes to a case of artistic liberty, especially since the core design elements have been retained, and are refined enough to be differentiated from the current Overwatch title. Still, there’s no saying if there’d be an overall revamp of character design for the second installment.
Echo isn’t the only new addition to Overwatch 2, though. Oft-requested features like a player-versus-environment (PvE) experience, as well as new game modes, maps, and heroes are all set to grace the game.
With all of that, hopefully the Overwatch team will be able to work towards building up the title’s rich, potential-riddled lore that has spawned a proud stable of spectacular animation shorts. In fact, it’s this very core narrative element that first sparked the interest of fans, and propelled it to where it is today in the first place, so it’d really be nice to have that back.
Expect more information at BlizzCon 2019 from November 1 to 2, 2019, where the reveal of Diablo 4 also awaits.
Si Jia is a casual geek at heart – or as casual as someone with Sephiroth’s theme on her Spotify playlist can get. A fan of movies, games, and Japanese culture, Si Jia’s greatest weakness is the Steam Summer Sale. Or any Steam sale, really.
Edwin Teo
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