New Overwatch character tease points to robotic 24th hero [updated]

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Breaking news from Numbani airport.

Update: The Overwatch PTR has been updated, and there's something different about the Numbani map. Something... missing. That's right, the Doomfist gauntlet has mysteriously vanished from the Numbani payload. The attacking team's spawn point—the airport terminal—also has been completely destroyed. It's now filled with the wreckage of OR15 robots, as seen in the tease earlier today. Here's some close-up images of the wrecked bot parts and missing gauntlet, courtesy of redditor DiviRan.  

Original story: We're one step closer to learning more about the upcoming 24th Overwatch hero, as Blizzard today released a new character teaser. This follows the first tease, an in-universe interview with 11-year-old robotics prodigy Efi Oladele, which was posted earlier this week.

"OR15 defense units destroyed in confrontation with unidentified attacker at Numbani airport. No civilian casualties reported," reads the chyron in the image.

Bot prodigy

11-year-old Efi Oladele is the recipient of a prestigious genius grant for her achievements in robotics and artificial intelligence.

Oladele mentioned these "OR15s" in the earlier interview, saying her dream was "to build something that can keep us safe, like the new OR15s! I think that would be great."  

The tease points toward the new character being one of these OR15 defense units, which we can infer to be a robotic hero of some kind, likely focused on a defensive/protective-type tanking role. This falls in line with the current speculation that the 24th Overwatch hero would be a tank-class character, as well as that the character would be a robotic drone of some type, possibly controlled remotely by Oladele, rather than the 11-year-old herself or a mech suit like D.Va. 

It's still unclear who—or what—attacked the Numbani airport where the incident took place. All we know is that no civilians were harmed (good job, OR15s!) and that the above image was apparently taken by Oladele herself (note the image credit in the bottom right hand corner). 

Stay tuned as we'll be sure to update if and when we learn more. 

Bo Moore
Bo Moore

As the former head of PC Gamer's hardware coverage, Bo was in charge of helping readers better understand and use PC hardware. He also headed up the buying guides, picking the best peripherals and components to spend your hard-earned money on. He can usually be found playing Overwatch, Apex Legends, or more likely, with his cats. He is now IGN's resident tech editor and PC hardware expert.