'Overwatch' Ashe: New Videos Troll 'Fortnite' and 'Red Dead Redemption 2'

Suddenly, the Wild West is everywhere. Red Dead Redemption 2 was only just released and Fortnite: Battle Royale added cowgirl and cowboy skins last month, but Overwatch just one-upped both games by adding a new cowgirl hero named Ashe.

At BlizzCon 2018 on Friday, Blizzard announced Ashe as the 29th Overwatch hero. “Introducing Ashe — leader of the Deadlock Gang and rebellious gunslinger who’s not afraid to get her hands dirty,” the company wrote in a Twitter post. According to her official hero page, her full name is Elizabeth Caledonia “Calamity” Ashe — so her cowgirl nickname is identical to the Fortnite character Calamity, a prominent character in Season 6. And whereas the Van der Linde Gang of Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bunch of male outlaws, Ashe’s Deadlock Gang is a diverse group of humans and Omnic robots led by a woman.

So is Ashe the coolest and best new cowgirl to hit the video game scene in recent memory? Definitely.

Ashe grew up in a life of privilege before being enticed into a life of crime by McCree. She took her Omnic butler, Bob, along for the ride. These days, she calls upon him to lay down suppressive fire as her Ultimate ability.

Blizzard also released its latest animated short for Overwatch on Friday, titled “Reunion.” With the Deadlock Gang backing her up, Ashe comes up against McCree as he tries foiling their most recent heist on the Route 66.

Per usual, the good guys win, and the end of the videos reveals that the “Reunion” in question is more about McCree reuniting with an Omnic called Echo who may be the game’s 30th hero right after Ashe. She and McCree were formerly “partners,” but Echo has been in storage for quite some time.

This was presumably after McCree and Ashe were partners, so there are a lot of reunions happening here.

There’s no telling how long it’ll be before Echo hits the game, but Ashe’s full hero profile on the Overwatch website already details her many abilities, a strong sign that she’ll at least hit the public test region on PC soon.

Ashe can fire from the hip or aim down the sights with her Western-style rifle, but she can also toss dynamite that explodes when shot. Her coach gun blasts enemies away too, and for her Ultimate she calls upon B.O.B. to smash enemies and lay down suppressive fire for a brief period of time.

Ashe falls squarely in the real of a DPS character that’ll seemingly exceed at medium range. She can compete with other snipers if she needs to but can also get in close and deal damage in an area with her Dynamite. So that kind of makes her a fusion of McCree and Widowmaker with just a touch of Junkrat. Because the Coach Gun has a knock-back effect, she’ll be able to use it to leap up to higher ledges like Junkrat with his mines, but it can also be used to boop enemies similar to Lúcio’s Soundwave ability.

Ashe will be playable at BlizzCon 2018 this weekend and will probably hit the public test region on PC early next week, with a console release several weeks after that.