We now know when the Overwatch Baptiste hero will hit the live servers. Baptiste will come out on March 19 on all platforms. The newest Overwatch hero was revealed in late February and is the 30th hero in the game. Baptiste has been in the game’s public test realm for several weeks.
Blizzard announced the release date of Baptiste on Wednesday with a short Twitter video. The Overwatch Baptiste release comes just over three weeks from his reveal on February 25. Baptiste will be live on all platforms on Tuesday, March 19, 2019 — less than a week away. Blizzard hasn’t released much more information regarding the patch he will inevitably be included in aside from the PTR patches, which don’t always translate to the live game. Baptiste is the seventh support-class hero, operating mainly as a healer.
Jean-Baptiste Augustin is a Haitian combat medic and a former Talon agent. Baptiste was orphaned during the Omnic Crisis, and enlisted in the Caribbean Coalition to survive. He then willfully joined Talon to protect himself, but he left the organization after realizing he was doing more harm than good. Baptiste fights using a three-round burst machine gun, and a healing grenade launcher. His abilities let him jump higher, heal himself and allies close to him, and prevent his team’s death in an area of effect. Baptiste’s ultimate amplifies damage of anything passing through it by 100 percent.
Baptiste’s reveal struck a chord with the Overwatch fanbase, seeing fan art created nearly instantaneously. In particular, his Haitian background was highlighted by fans seeking more diverse representation in Overwatch.
Overwatch has seen nine new heroes, including Baptiste, added since the game launched in 2016. The first new hero released was Ana, a healer and the mother of Pharah. Most recently added was Ashe, revealed and released in November 2018. Fans have been hoping to play as Echo for years, but it doesn’t look like she’ll be the next hero after Baptiste releases.
