An image posted by the official Mexican Twitter account for the Overwatch World Cup may have accidentally revealed the game’s 31st Hero. In a Tweet announcing the introduction of Role Queue, the posted images show a never-before-seen hero as the “most played,” and show his name as “Sigma.” A giant “Temp Art” is stamped across the images, so until Blizzard conforms that Sigma is the next hero, it isn’t certain. If it isn’t just reserve asset art for testing purposes, it would make sense that Sigma is the next character to join Overwatch’s roster.
In English, the tweet reads: “It’s official! The new Role Queue system is coming to Overwatch in Quick Play and Competitive modes. Its already available on the PTR.” The tweet doesn’t mention anything about the new hero “Sigma” or mention anything about an incoming character announcement. The closeup of the “temp art” image shows that “Sigma” was only played for nine minutes.
In a Developer Update released by Jeff Kaplan earlier this week, he announced that the next hero would be coming, but the team needs more time to get the new hero ready. Heroes have been releasing on an approximate three month cycle, so it’s likely that the next hero will be playable pretty soon. Kaplan did call the new hero a “he,” saying “he is going to be awesome,” which is another indicator in favor of Sigma being Hero 31.
Jeff Kaplan indirectly responded to this potential leak while sitting down for a live stream with pro Overwatch player Brandon ‘Seagull’ Larned. The two paired up to talk about the Role Queue and Role Lock changes to the game, but Seagull did bring up the “Sigma” business.
Kaplan didn’t give any more details about the possible leak, but he did react in a way that suggests the leak may be real in small or large part. “That’s a mystery to me, that sounds really cool.” Kaplan said.
By mystery, I mean it’s not a mystery at all. There’s lots of exciting things coming this summer.
The latest patch for Overwatch was just announced this week, and it will bring balance changes to the game as well as introduce new features like Role Queue. The new mechanic lets players choose their preferred role in advance, which will ideally to better overall team compositions. Teams will be locked to a “2-2-2,” or two damage-dealers, two supports, and two tanks. These new rules extend to the competitive players in the Overwatch League as well.