Good news forOverwatchfans who feared theyweren’t going to get any new heroes untilOverwatch 2. Blizzard has confirmed that the game’s next playable character is coming soon, and not only that, it’s going to be one that’s been teased for over a year now: Echo.
Blizzard got the ball rolling earlier this week with a brief and cryptic teaser that hinted at Echo’s reveal. This came after the advanced Omnic AI had made multiple appearances throughout the franchise’s cinematics, starting with2018’s “Reunion”andOverwatch 2’s reveal cinematic, “Zero Hour,” where she appeared more prominently. None of these, though, really gave much of a clue into her backstory.
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That changed today with the confirmation that Echo will beOverwatch’s 32nd hero. A new “origin story” video released by Blizzard finally paints a picture of how Echo came to be a part of Overwatch. In doing so, it also provides fans interested in the franchise’s lore with an answer to one of its biggest mysteries.
It’s been known that the in-universe Overwatch was founded by six people. Five of them - Soldier: 76, Reaper, Ana, Reinhardt, and Torbjorn - have been accounted for, but for the longest time nothing was said about the sixth founder. Today’s video, however, reveals that the sixth was Dr. Mina Liao, a scientist who helped create the robotic Omnics and later joined Overwatch to stop them from rebelling against humanity. From the look of it, Liao died during the conflict, but her spirit and mission lives on inEcho, an advanced Omnic with her mannerisms and voice.
While that solves both the mystery of Overwatch’s sixth founder and where Echo came from, the video doesn’t offer any clue for how Echo will actually play. Fans have taken stabs atfiguring out Echo’s abilitiesbased on her previous appearances, but as of this writing, it still remains to be seen what she’ll bring to the game.
Luckily, it shouldn’t be much longer until that’s also revealed. Typically it only takes about 2-3 weeks for a newly-confirmed character to be added to theOverwatchtest servers, so odds are then that players will be able to take Echo for a spin and see if she ranks amongOverwatch’s best heroesby mid-April at the latest.
Overwatchis available for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
