Overwatch 2's First Melee Damage Hero Was 'pushed Forward' In The...

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.

Blizzard has never explicitly stated it was intentional, but fans have assumed it cycled through the roles to keep the number of heroes in each role balanced. Overwatch has always had significantly more damage heroes than the rest, but everyone accepted that as a consequence of it being the most popular role.

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, beca

Source: PC Gamer