Overwatch's new hero Echo is officially "coming soon"

Alright alright, you can stop speculating now because Blizzard have finally confirmed that the long-teased Echo will be Overwatch's next hero. Or, perhaps continue speculating because they've told us next to zilch about her. Although we've seen her pop up in previous animated shorts, today's very brief teaser does not much more than confirm that she's en-route to the game.

Here's the teaser for ya, so go on and watch that before we talk more.

In today's teaser, Dr. Liao, co-founder of the fictional Overwatch, reminisces during what were probably her final moments about her life's work completing Echo. Blizzard's description of the blue-faced AI is pretty vague so far: "An evolutionary robot programmed with a rapidly adapting artificial intelligence, Echo represents the cutting edge of technology."

Imogen speculated about Echo just a few days ago and although we've got the confirmation she predicted, the other details are still up in the air. Will Echo be a healer? Some sort of flying laser mage as she appears in the Overwatch 2 trailer? Dr. Liao's personal logs, from Blizzard's hints on Twitter, do lend some credence to the idea that Echo will be a helper more than a fighter.

"I can only hope that this project can change the conversation: that people can understand that the potential of artificial life is so much greater than whatever we have to gain by treating them as our property, or our servants."

Liao definitely wanted people to stop fearing Omnic AIs, which you'd imagine might come in the form of one whose purpose is to help or heal. Ah, but it is Overwatch so she's got to be involved in the fight somehow, right?

That's all we know so far, but as Echo is supposed to be "coming soon" we'll likely hear more specifics about her play style before too long.

If this has all got you in the mood to play a bit, Overwatch's story-based PvE missions are currently live for the annual Archive event, which we know we'll see more of in Overwatch 2 when it launches.