Jeff Kaplan says the team has big plans for Mauga and is still interested in making him a playable hero someday. As a result, they created the hero Sigma instead. Mauga was originally supposed to be Hero 31 as a result of the developers wanting another barrier Tank and wanting to expand upon Talon lore however, when working on the hero's kit, they found it not in line with Mauga's personality.Her ultimate would be for the bear to also pull out dual AKs. She would be riding a bear and dual-wielding AK-47s. A female Russian hero that was pitched in the early days of development.The following heroes have been cut during development of the game:Īn early heroes pitch-some heroes are in the final version By this last stage, over 150 individuals will have worked on the hero in some form. After that, the hero then needs to be publicized. These individuals work on material such as origin videos, comics and animated shorts. Īfter the hero is fully playable, a different group is brought in to build the hero's story by this point around eighty developers. How a hero is developed can vary sometimes their look and feel inspire their abilities, sometimes it’s the other way around. Once this is completed, the hero gains (or will have gained) forty or more developers, which build its respective content (skins, emotes, voice lines, etc.) For early heroes, it was common to theme the hero mainly around their weapon ( Widowmaker and Pharah are examples of this). If that's in the affirmative and the concept is settled, the team of five becomes a team of ten to fifteen, who are tasked with 'finding the fun' in the hero and bringing out its 'core.' This includes work on art, design, engineering, audio and quality assurance. When a hero is pitched, a group of five developers examine the concept from the perspectives of gameplay, character concept and story to see if the idea is worth fleshing out.

Heroes are based off popular and recognizable archtypes. Which hero's development gets priority is determined through the game's current state, and what hero is needed because of it. There are always a few heroes in development at any given time. This means that every even numbered season is expected to release with a new hero.ġ Originally Offense, 2 Originally Defense, 3 Originally Support, 4 Originally Damage Development In Overwatch 2, new heroes are expected to arrive every other season, starting in Season 2. It was later confirmed in an interview that Echo would be the final hero before the release of Overwatch 2. With the addition of Echo, the promise of 'at least' 1 new hero has been fulfilled. Multiple heroes released at once with the release of Overwatch 2 and 'at least' 1 new hero was expected to release before then. However, with the announcement of Overwatch 2, this tradition breaks.

The November reveal happens during the opening ceremony of BlizzCon. In Overwatch 1, new heroes were released roughly every 4 months, typically in March, July, and November. Since then, 16 additional heroes have been added. There were originally 21 heroes at the launch of the game.

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