Orisa Is Overwatch's 24th Hero
Well, it ain't Doomfist. In a special developer update, director Jeff Kaplan unveiled Orisa, Overwatch's 24th playable character.
Prior to the events of Overwatch, humans and robots fought in a world-wide war known as the Omnic Crisis. After the war ended, the city of Numbani became a haven for humans and Omnics alike. However, the peace didn't last long—a villain named Doomfist started harassing Numbani's residents, forcing the people to fight back. Numbani's citizens upgraded old OR-14 war machines (calling the new Omnics OR-15s, naturally) and used them to protect the city. That worked fine for a while, but eventually, Doomfist wiped the OR-15s out during major battle at the Numbani airport, and the heroic Omnics were quickly forgotten.
That's where Efi Oladele comes in. Following the slaughter at the airport, the 11-year-old prodigy salvaged some of the OR-15s' ruined parts and built Orisa, a powerful warrior robot. Kaplan says, "Orisa... is a brand new hero just on the scene. We have yet to see what Orisa is really going to do." That's very different from most of Overwatch's roster, which is comprised primarily of seasoned veterans with long and involved backstories.
In the game, Orisa functions as a tank. She wields a "projectile-based machine gun" called the Fusion Driver, which slows Orisa down while firing but has a longer range than almost any other tank weapon. Orisa's alternate fire dispatches a mini-graviton surge that pulls her opponents around the battlefield, setting them up for headshots and other devastating attacks. In addition, Orisa avoids crowd-control powers like Pharah's concussive blast with her Fortify ability, unleashes a protective barrier to guard herself or her allies, and deploys the Supercharger, which makes anybody in the weapon's line-of-sight take more damage.
Kaplan says that the Overwatch crew wants Orisa to be an "anchor tank" (low mobility, but lots of protective value, meaning that it's a good character to build a team around) like Reinhardt in order to give players a little more flexibility when choosing their teams' line-ups. Blizzard also wanted to create a character that rounded out Overwatch's multi-generational cast.
Almost a year after release, Overwatch continues to be one of the most popular games on the market among casual fans, pros, and cheaters. Kaplan says that Orisa won't be released to the public until she's absolutely perfect—hopefully, that'll happen sooner rather than later.