Everything We Know About Doomfist in 'Overwatch'

Blizzard’s Overwatch has been steadily growing since the video game launched in May, bringing plenty of new content through patches, holiday events, and cosmetic unlocks. Every so often, Blizzard also releases a new map or character for the game, which has served as some of the more sizable content drops due to the way they change the pace of the game. Additions like Ana Amari and Sombra took the Overwatch community by storm, but now that they’ve released? It’s time for the next big character hunt to begin, and that means Doomfist could be right over the horizon.

For those unfamiliar, Doomfist is a character name that’s been tossed around the Overwatch community since before the game was even released. Instead of being a set individual like the rest of Overwatch’s heroes however, the name actually serves as a moniker for anyone who wields the powerful gauntlet shown in the Overwatch cinematic trailer back in 2014.

During the trailer, we get a glimpse at Doomfist’s gauntlet as the boys move about the museum exploring the various exhibits. Here, we found out that the gauntlet was put on display by none other than Winston, who managed to defeat the previous Doomfist years before. Now, it’s an item Reaper and Widowmaker are after to further the goals of Talon to some degree — and that probably means by stealing the gauntlet to hand over to its rightful owner.

What’s interesting though, is that Doomfist seemingly wasn’t intended to be a major character within the Overwatch universe. He was to be mentioned in the trailer, scattered into the lore used on social media, and mentioned a few times in-game (in regards to the gauntlet). But once players found his gauntlet was locked inside of the payload on the in-game Numbani map, things started to get interesting.

Known as the “City of Harmory,” Numbani is one of the few places where omnics and humans lived as equals following the Omnic Crisis. Each year, the city holds a Unity Day celebration to honor the accomplishments they’ve made within their community. As part of the latest Unity Day festivities, a Doomfist exhibit is opening at the Numbani Heritage Museum. In-game on Numbani, you can see tons of references to the exhibit scattered about the map, but the most interesting one lies in the defending team’s final spawn point.

Three gigantic banners on both sides of the wall each reference a different individual who carried the name Doomfist by wielding the gauntlet: Adhabu Ngumi (the Savior), Akinjide Adeyemi (the Scourge), and an unknown person referred to as the Successor. The running theory is that whomever this successor is will become the next playable hero for Overwatch.

And it’s a theory that has too much evidence to be a mere coincidence at this point, especially considering how well Blizzard hid secrets about Ana and Sombra in Overwatch leading up to their release. On top of the many obvious in-game references, we know that another active threat is present in Numbani who seeks to undermine the peaceful co-existence of its inhabitants thanks to Soldier: 76’s origin video. Plus, we’ve seen Doomfist’s gauntlet appear in Sombra’s origin story video too.

If introduced in 2017, we’ll probably seem Doomfist fulfill a much-needed tanking role alongside Reinhardt, Roadhog, D.Va, Zarya, and Winston to give players another option that offers a utility currently missing from the role. Plus, we may already have a voice actor for Doomfist as well: good ole Terry Crews, who expressed interest in the role after visiting Blizzard back in December. But, until the company starts dropping hints for the next Overwatch hero, we’ll just have to keep waiting for more details.