Whenever a new Overwatch hero is on the horizon, everyone tries to guess which of the three roles they'll fit into. There's been a pattern ever since Overwatch 2 came out where Blizzard releases at least one tank, one support, and one damage-dealer every year.
The hero release pattern isn't a hard rule, Blizzard tells PC Gamer in a recent interview. And that's why its next hero, Vendetta, isn't a tank as many players expected. She'll be the game's first purely melee-based damage hero, a fantasy that the developers couldn't pass up.
"I saw a lot of very confident expectations that hero 45 was going to be a tank based off of a recent release pattern that we're now switching up a little bit," senior character artist Bryan Bedford says. "But I think one of the most important aspects of adding a new hero is honestly just coming up with something that's fun to play."
Associate game director Alec Dawson remembers being asked about a melee DPS hero three years ago, and says choosing Vendetta as the next hero was "more about servicing that playstyle that we really didn't have in the roster." Once the team saw her early concepts, they had to make her. "I think part of our mission at all times is to create things that we think will be really exciting for players," he added. "And that was one that was constantly asked about."
Vendetta carries a big sword and a bloodlust for all the people who stand in the way of her getting revenge for her murdered father. Overwatch 1 players will remember him from the PvE Retribution mission where you play as a group of black ops agents trying to capture him. Vendetta is a consequence of how that mission ends, and her arrival will kickstart a continuation of a storyline that has been stagnant for seven years.
The quickest way to describe the way she plays in-game is just calling her an Italian version of Magik from Marvel Rivals. But that doesn't tell the whole story. Her primary attack is a three-hit combo that ends in a powerful overhead slash. That final swing deals the same amount of damage as other heroes do with headshots, making it a priority to stay as far away from her as you can. Good luck with that, though, because she can toss her sword toward you and fly to it or charge right in and swing the sword in a circle around her.
Bedford says some heroes "separate themselves from the pack a little bit" during playtests and Vendetta had the team "absolutely hooked" before any of the others in development. "I cannot overstate how fun it is to just jump in and start tearing through the sky with that blade throw."
Vendetta might disappoint all the players who were hoping for a gladiator tank, but it sounds like there's a handful of new heroes on their way soon. I play a bunch of different heroes, and if you stick to just one or two you'd be surprised which heroes benefit from skillsets learned from other roles. A gigantic sword isn't that different from Reinhardt's big hammer, and I'm sure support players will thank you for protecting them with it in the middle of a fight. All I'm saying is that you never know when you're going to stumble upon your new favorite.
Vendetta will launch with Overwatch's next season in December, but you'll be able to play her early from November 26 to December 1.
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