Sombra’s crazy Overwatch 2 rework was already hinted at by devs
Blizzard EntertainmentThe Overwatch 2 developers are set to fully reveal Sombra and Bastion’s huge reworks for the sequel during the OWL Grand Finals on September 25, but we may already have a big idea of what to expect.
As Overwatch 2 gears closer to release, especially with the Overwatch League playing on an early build of the game in April, the devs have become a lot more open about changes, upgrades, and reworks for existing heroes.
However, during a Reddit AMA back during the game’s Aniversary event, Lead Hero Designer Geoff Goodman was asked specifically about Sombra and her role in the upcoming game.
As it turns out, they were actively trying to rework her for Overwatch 2 and Goodman revealed some of the ideas they tried internally.
Blizzard EntertainmentSombra Overwatch 2 reworks tested
“For OW2, I’ve done some iteration on her in regards to how she might work in a world where there is less crowd control effects for Damage heroes,” he wrote.
In the first internal test, Sombra could no longer hack players anymore and instead, she gained 50% increased damage when shooting a hero in the back. This wasn’t a good change, however, according to Goodman.
“It felt weird/bad to just never be able to hack enemies. She’s supposed to be this hacker but her hack was relegated to health packs mostly. This is potentially solvable if we added a lot more things she could hack, such as objectives and barriers, etc, but I’m not sure it’s worth chasing at this point,” he said back in May.
The second test was apparently “super fun” and let her hack enemies while invisible, but the hack just meant that allies could see them through walls and she would gain a 30% damage boost against hacked targets.
This too, sadly, had problems, as according to Goodman, “her ult was terrible in this version without further changes to it. I’m unsure about this direction as well, as it sort of downplays her hacking in general.”
“Both of these ideas were in the camp of ‘what if she was more deadly, but we downplayed her hacking a bit,’ but there are other directions we could try as well,” he noted.
Activision BlizzardWhat will Sombra’s Overwatch 2 rework be?
It does seem like, with only one tank on each team, hack as it currently is in Overwatch 1 would be too powerful by being able to take away abilities.
This said, if the second option was fun, the devs may be trying to build off that, potentially with a hack or EMP behaving more like Zenyatta’s Discord Orb where whoever it is applied to receives 25% more damage when attacked by anyone, not just Sombra herself.
Considering how fun it apparently was to hack enemies while invisible, don’t be shocked if we see this implemented in her actual rework in some capacity.
Be sure to tune into the Overwatch League Grand Finals on September 25 at 5PM PST/8PM EST to see how Sombra and Bastion are reworked and more Overwatch 2 details.