Blizzard announced today that the next hero to hit Overwatch will be a huge robotic centaur named Orisa.
Following what felt like a promotional campaign that constantly teased the Doomfist character, game director Jeff Kaplan confirmed in February that the “24[th character] is not who you think it is.” Sure enough, here’s a robot centaur with its own A.I. personality.
Efi Oladele, a genius 11-year-old from Numbani, was first introduced in a February 21 “blog post” in an interview exploring her aptitude for robotics and artificial intelligence, and she said, “My dream is to build something that can keep us safe.” As it turns out, this heavily modified and upgraded OR15 is the fulfillment of that dream. This also brings clarity to a February 27 teaser tweet from Blizzard featuring Efi’s list of “things to get,” which included a Tolbelstein reactor, an Axiom vocal processor, a Branford arm, and the paint colors for Orisa.
Take a look at Orisa’s origin story below:
Orisa will join the likes of D.Va, Reinhardt, and Zarya as a Tank, soaking up damage and helping out her teammates, serving as “the central anchor of her team” with defensive fortifications, long-range attacks, and more.
Orisa’s primary weapon, Fusion Driver, is an automatic projectile that sounds a bit like a mobile Bastion in turret form. Fortify allows her to withstand almost any enemy attack, like a more selfish Defense Matrix. Halt! is virtually identical to Zarya Ultimate, Graviton Surge, except rather than persisting, it offers up a one-off chance to bunch together enemies. Protective Barrier deploys a stationary wall shield — think a fusion of Winston’s and Reinhardt’s shields. Lastly, it looks like Orisa’s ultimate ability will be Supercharger, a deployable pylon that increases damage inflicted by herself and any allies within line of sight in a fashion similar to Mercy’s Caduceus Staff.
For a more in-depth look from the Overwatch developers, check out the below video:
Orisa is currently live on the PTR servers for Overwatch, so she’ll likely hit consoles and mainstream play within a couple of weeks.
