I’m sure we all had our doubts yesterday when Blizzard posted to their official website an article outlining the hero every Overwatch player has been waiting for: Doomfist. The hero that’s been teased since the first cinematic of Overwatch has eluded players ever since, and this reveal was assuredly some sort of drill or test, right?
Since this reveal is obviously legitimate, the arrival of Doomfist ceased to be a question of if and moved firmly into the realm of “when.” So when, exactly will we be getting to go hands on with Doomfist? If Blizzard is to be keeping to any sort of pattern, we could be seeing the mysterious villain as early as next week, on Thursday, July 13.
When Overwatch introduced its 24th hero, the robot Orisa, they first teased it with a cryptic article posted on Feb. 21. This was an interview with Efi Oladele, a child super-genius who teased that she had some big ideas for something to build, which ended up being Orisa herself. After a few more teasing updates along the way, including the story of an attack at a Numbani airport, Overwatch finally revealed Orisa on March 2nd, even going so far as to put the hero in the Public Testing Realm (PTR).
Since this Doomfist article was released on Blizzard’s site on July 4, a Tuesday just like before, the following Thursday, July 13 would be the exact same amount of days between the first Orisa article and Orisa’s arrival on the PTR.
Blizzard changed their official strategy with revealing new heroes following the now infamous and disastrous “Sombra ARG” a month’s long tease of the stealth hero that was scarcely updated and didn’t actually allow for player interaction. As Jeff Kaplan wrote in the forums a bit before Orisa’s first tease: “We have new heroes coming … The reason we don’t talk about new hero development more is we took the community feedback regarding the Sombra ARG to heart.” This schedule of teasing with an article and following up with a PTR release could be Blizzard’s new M.O.
Still, though, no details on how the hero will actually look and play have been revealed, leading many to speculate. Given the character’s famous Gauntlet, many are expecting a melee hero, but that may not be the case.
Doomfist’s reveal didn’t come as much of a surprise to those who are paying attention. Last Sunday, players found out that an error report contained the phrase “Overwatch 1.13.0.0 Doomfist / Summer Games.” Since Overwatch is currently in Patch 1.12, with a version of patch 1.13 in the PTR right now, this clearly signaled the imminent arrival of Doomfist. As an added bonus, Patch 1.13 will also bring the recent loot box changes that will decrease the amount of duplicates people receive and increase the amount of credits people receive in each loot box.
